T H E 



A ORTH EASTERN BOUNDARY 



or THE 



UNITED STATES. 



BOSTON: 
PRINTED BY PEIRCE & PARKER, 
No. 9 Cornhill. 
1832. 



PREFACE. 



The following Essay on the controversy between the 
United States and Great Britain, in regard to the North- 
Eastern boundary, was published in the April No. 
(the 75th) of t!ie North American Review. It has been 
thought that an extensive circulation of it among the 
citizens of Maine might probably aid in the promotion 
of the cause of truth and the country at the approachinor 
elections. In that hope, it is now republished in the 
present form. The accompanying map gives a distinct 
view of the territory in question, and of the several 
lines which have been established and suggested as 
boundaries for the State. 

The Essay is attributed, we have no doubt truly, to 
a citizen of Maine of distinction, who has been more 
than once officially employed by the State and General 
Government in tlie negotiations upon this subject, — who 
is intimately conversant with the details of the question 
in all its parts, and who for his general soundness of judg- 
ment and high literary attainments, was eminently qual- 
ified to discuss it with all the necessary precision and el- 
egance. We cannot doubt that the argument in favor 
of the integrity of the territory of Maine, in the form 



IV PREFACE. 

in which it is now presented, will be read with great 
satisfaction, and with the most beneficial results. 

Independently of the various important interests involv- 
ed in the approaching Presidential Election, and which 
are common to the people of Maine, with all the other 
citizens of the United States, the former have at stake 
the great and momentous concern of the INTEGRITY 
OF THEIR TERRITORY. It has for some time past 
been the determination of the Jackson party, to deprive 
the state of Maine of about a fifth part of her territory, 
by a regular BARGAIN AND VOTE, to a foreign 
power, with the ultimate purpose of fortifying their own 
ascendancy at home. The project has been arrested for 
the present, by the noble resistance of the people and of 
their representatives in the Senate of the United States. 
But it is still entertained, and if General Jackson is re- 
elected President it will be immediately secured and 
carried into effect. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 



It is said of Sir Orlando Bridgman, who was 
advanced to the seals on the dismission of 
Clarendon, that being ' afraid of deciding 
wrong, he labored to please both sides, and al- 
ways gave something to each of the contending 
parties, that came into his court.' Upon this it 
is added hy Dr. Lingard, on the strength of 
old Roger North, that ' he lost his reputation.' 
This is a casualty, which we should be sorry to 
see occur in the case of the illustrious head of 
the house of Orange Nassau, who has struggled 
manfully to maintain his solemn rights to his 
petty territory, and has preserved a title to the 
respect at least of Europe, in the strenuous 
and energetic hour of his adversity. Maia- 
tiendraiy indeed, was the motto of his regal 
arms ; and he has manifested a most invincible 
and exemplary repugnance to the reduction ot 
his agreed and established limits. A well con- 
sidered article in Blackwood's Magazine for 
*1 



6 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

October last, eulogizing the wisdom of the 
C()iiii;ress of Vienna, in creating the kingdom of 
the .Netherlands, as a master-piece of Anti- 
Gallician policy, pronounces its disseverance 
to be the greatest crime in ihe conduct of Eu- 
rope, since the partition of Poland. That is a 
matter, however, with which we do not concern 
ourselves. We respect the principle of the 
King's opposition, so far as it is founded on the 
plighted faith of public stipulations, and we can- 
not avoid being struck with the singular rap- 
prochement, as it was expressed in the Court 
Journal of the Hague, between the relations of 
the king of the Netherlands and the Govern- 
ment of Great Britain, by which the latter was 
so soon called upon, recijirocally, to interpose 
on the subject of boundaries. From the cold 
shoulder shown toward liim in the last speech 
from the British throne, it may be inferred, that 
the merit of his amicable proposal for the com- 
position of the dispute between that country 
and this, is in the way of being as indifferently 
requited on one side, as it is of being ac- 
knowledged upon the other. The British Gov- 
ernment, we understand, have signified their 
acceptance of his a\fard ; but he has not yet 
signified his acceptance of theirs. He appeals 
with earnestness to the public faith of Europe, 
and the positive obligations of treaties. 

The topic of controversy, which has passed 
under the consideration of the King of the 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. / 

Netherlands, is one which we wish to deal with 
tenderly, and at the same time, truly and faith- 
fully. We are sensihle of the propensity of an 
umpire, as pointed out by Mr. Gallatin, to 'split 
the difference;' and can easily suppose, with- 
out imputing any obliquity of intention to a pro- 
ceeding, which iTiay be accounted for on very 
obvious principles, that the arbiter might have 
conceived he was verily fulfilling the final pur- 
pose of the parties, in having recourse to his 
opinion, as a pacific expedient for cutting the 
knot, which resisted any more learned mode of 
solution. We might choose to adopt the more 
charitable supposition, rather than countenance 
any miserable apology of political expediency, 
to varnish over the weakness of compromising 
those commanding principles of sovereign law, 
which maintain their equal ascendancy over 
thrones and globes. 

Some prescription might possibly seem to 
exist, for treating this as a difficult and doubtful 
affair, from the long pendency of the ancient 
quarrel concerning the limits of Acadia, under 
the treaty of Utrecht. That controversy was 
brought no nearer to a close, by the commission 
established after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; 
and, as is well known, never came to any deter- 
mination. The En2;lish undertook to exiend 
the limits of Acadia up to the Penobscot, in 
order to extinguish the Frencli pretension to 
the country ; while the French, by an artificial 



8 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

construction of the article in question, under- 
took to confine the cession to a part of the 
present peninsula of Nova Scotia. The re- 
mark of Barbe Marbois, in relation to the com- 
parison of French and English titles on this 
continent, applies here, — that they throw very 
little light upon the subject. The dispute in 
this quarter existed not so much on the St. 
Lawrence, as the Atlantic ; and after reconnoi- 
tring the field of controversy attentively, we 
believe it was found to contain little or nothing 
to the purpose of the present question, and that 
the idea of any advantage from referring to it 
was abandoned. We may treat this to})ic now 
as somewhat famili'«r to our readers, and take 
it up without much preface ; meaning to pursue 
a general line of remark upon it, in support of 
those views of the right, which have heretofore 
been taken in this journal. Any further con- 
sideration of this somewhat dry subject is so far 
from being precluded by the opinion delivered 
by the King of the Netherlands, that it only 
seems to furnish occasion for directing attention 
more strongly imd distinctly townrd the promi- 
neni points of debate, and ascertaining w'hether 
they have been sufficiently regarded. The 
long deliberation which has been exercised by 
thti Government of ihe United Stales, upon the 
propriety or expediency of accepting the re- 
sult of that equivocal arbitration, affoids anoth- 
er opportunity of expressing our apprehension. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 9 

that the principal facts in relation to this ques- 
tion have either been grossly overlooked, or 
greatly misunderstood. We refer mninly to 
the evidence of the existence of the northern 
boundary of what was Massachusetts, now 
Maine, in the first place ; and the determina- 
tion, thence resuhing, of the point co-incident 
with the north-west angle of Novia Scotia. It 
is, indeed, aptly remaiked by the Committee of 
the Massachusetts Legislature, that ' the objec- 
tion to the proceedings of the King of the 
Netherlands has no connexion with the merits 
of the case as between the two parties.' He 
has not pronounced upon them. The Gover- 
nor of Massachusetts justly observes that 'the 
reference of the boundary question to the King 
of the Netherlands has been wholly ineffectual 
to its just decision.- He has palpably departed 
from the plain terms of the submission, and 
substituted a proposition to a compromise ol 
difficulties, for an award upon the matter direct- 
ly in issue between the parlies. As an arbiter, 
his office strictly was, to apply a descriptive line 
of boundary to corresponding a^ppearances on 
the face of nature. Rejecting tliese, he has at- 
|tempted to establish a new course of division, 
denoted by monuments totally dissimilar, and 
through a tract of country distant and widely 
different. By no rule of municipal or interna- 
tional law, can such decision be made of bind- 
ing obligation. There is no occasion to inquire 



10 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

into the extraordinary influences, which may be 
supposed to have produced it.' 

We consider the historical existence of this 
part of the treaty boundary in dispute, as dat- 
ing in truth from the termination of the contro- 
versy concerning the hmits of Acadia, and the 
execution of the arrangements devised by the 
British crown, consequent upon the peace of 
1763. That was the era of a totally new sys- 
tem of foreign relations in regard to this coun- 
try, — all that formerly belonged to France on 
this side of the ]Mississippi being surrendered. 
It was distinctly marked, also, by the entrance 
of Great Britain upon a new plan of colonial 
policy, in regard to the limits of her old posses- 
sions upon this continent. This was adopted, 
for the purpose of curtailing the dimensions of 
these provinces in the rear, and at the same 
time of securing to the crown the great tracts 
of unsettled territory, the adverse title to wliich 
was now extinguished. The colonial charters, 
comprehended princijially between positive paral- 
lels of latitude, were considered as extending 
inimitably toward the Pacific, so long as it was • 
convenient to opjjose them to the pretensions of | 
France, and vvliile the actual progress of the { 
colonies in that direction was ih waited by the 
movement of the French power across from 
Canada to Louisiana. The crnqucst of Can- 
ada was followed by a coup (Pctut of the British 
Government, which may bear a limited com 



( 

I 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 11 

parison, for the sake of illustration, to that 
which ensued in France, upon the capitulation 
of Algiers. Like that, it evinced the instinct 
of arbitrary authority, alarmed for its absolute 
ascendancy, to strengthen itself on the occur- 
rence of some new political advantage, — and 
sought to keep down principles of innate power, 
that are not, capable of being subdued by re- 
scripts or edicts. Little did England, any more 
than France, indeed, contemplate the prodi- 
gious career of consequences opening from the 
issue of their last conflict at arms, affording a 
free play to the active principles that had plant- 
ed this continent from the pressure of a foreign 
hostile force upon the frontier. But it is no 
part of our present purpose, to travel out into 
that immense region of moral and political re- 
sults, flowing from the causes which conduced 
to the emancipation of America, — consequen- 
ces, which neither this age nor another is des- 
tined to see exhausted. The leading act, to 
which we have referred as fixing the earliest 
proper date to the present matter of dispute, is 
the well-known proclamation of 1763. This 
state paper was far better known in a former 
age ; but its importance has been revived by 
the circumstance of its having given a ge- 
ographical definition of boundary, which was 
incorporated afterwards into an act of the Brit- 
ish Parliament, and eventually into tlie treaty of 
peace between Great Britain and this country. 



12 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

That this proclamation had a bearing upon 
the subject ol this boondary, there could hardly 
seem to have been room for question. It was 
the first public document, emanating from the 
crown, describing an extent of highlands, di- 
viding rivers emptying themselves into the St. 
Lawrence from those which fall into the sea. 
This description begins indefinitely, after leav- 
ing the forty-fifth parallel of latitude east of 
Laice Champlain, and terminates toward the 
Bay of Chaleurs. But this description was 
fiot the mere manufacture of that proclamation. 
We know it may seem to be a piece of super- 
erogation to a great portion of our readers, who 
take an intelligent interest in public topics, to be 
at pains to produce proof in regard to the truth 
of facts, as familiar as any in the history and 
geography of the country. Ufitur testibus non 
necessariis in re non dubia is a reproof of which 
we should be very cautious, if we had not be- 
fore our eyes the most pregnant and extraordi- 
nary evidence, not merely that these facts have 
been called in question, and the force of them 
denied by those who have been extremely ear- 
nest to avoid :hem, but that they are somehow 
disposed of in tiie report of the arbiter, either 
as irrelevant or not properly established ; — his 
opinion having the effect, moreover, either of 
disaffirming their existence or divesting them of 
their chaiacter. The more highly we are dis- 
posed to deem of the moral and intellectual 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 13 

qualities of that distinguished person, who was 
selected among the sovereigns of Europe to 
pronounce his judgment upon the subject, the 
more we are inclined to ask, whether it present- 
ed itself in its proper relief to his mind. We 
pass without observation, the idea of finding the 
boundary in the bed of a river ; and we are led 
to reflect with more consideration on the proofs 
afforded by hisiorical and geographical circum- 
stances, by public acts of the highest solemnity, 
and a long course of policy on the part of Great 
Britain, in regard to the fixed character of the 
north-eastern boundary. 

This question, as we have observed, did not 
arise between France and England. We men- 
tioned, however, in a former article, that the 
commissions of some of the governors of Can- 
ada, while it was in possession of France, ex- 
tended ten leagues on the south side of the St. 
Lawrence. Such seem to have been the com- 
missions of the Sieur de Laiison, and the J^i- 
comte d^Jlrgenson, in the seventeenth century. 
We find also, in 1684, a petition from French 
inhabitants to the King, describing themselves 
as living on the coast of the south side of the 
river St. Lawrence down towards les Monts 
JYotre Dame ; and, in a memoir addressed to 
the King, by M. de Meules, Intendant of New 
France, also in 1684, upon the extent of the 
territory of Canada, it is stated, that the lands 
in Canada, from the entrance of the river St. 
2 



14 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

Lawrence to ten or twelve leagues about Que- 
bec, are scarcely any of them fit to raise wiieat, 
on account of the chains of mountains which 
render these places inacessible. Si Voii con- 
sidere les terres du Canada depuis le Cap Bre- 
ton, qui est V entree du Jleuve Saint JLaurent 
jusques a 10 « 12 lieues uutour de (Quebec, on 
y trouvera peu de terres propres a semer dii 
bled froment, a cause des chaines de montagnes, 
qui rendent ces lieux inacccssibles. 

But, without going back to an earlier period 
than that which we have before mentioned, as 
being the proper epoch of this question, we 
may refer to tlie map prefixed to the volume of 
memorials published in London by the British 
Commissioners upon the limits of Acadia, in 
order to support a set of facts, which it has 
suited the fancy of a later day to represent as 
fabulous. It may be remarked that this map, 
together with the volume, was published in 1755, 
when both parlies joined in an appeal to the pub- 
lic opinion of Europe in the same form. The 
British Ministers, also, communicated their jus- 
tificatory memoir the same year;* and the war 
had actually broken out in America, — that war 
in which our Washington first became conspic- 
uous. Coeval with this map was likewise pub- 
lished that which is called Mitchell's, under the 



* The British memoir was written by the liistorian 
Gibbon. 



r 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 15 

patronage of the Board of Trade and Planta- 
tions. We put the two maps together, because 
they belong lo the same period and come in 
apposition with the circumstances of the time, 
and because they both agree in giving a geog- 
raphical representation of the natural features 
of the country, corresponding in the main, 
though manifestly not copied from each other, 
with the general description we have had of 
them from that time almost, we may say, if not 
quite, to the present. In both maps, New Eng- 
land is bounded by the Atlantic on one side and 
the St. Lawrence on the other; in both, the 
boundary from the Atlantic runs north, inter- 
sects ridges of highlands lying between the 
rivers St. Lawrence and St. John, although in 
Jeffrey's map, (published by the Commission- 
ers,) it was drawn from the Penobscot, and in 
Mitchell's from the Maguadavie, which he de- 
nominated the St. Croix. On the Commis- 
sioners' map, there are two St. Croix laid down 
between the Penobscot and St. John, one being 
the Passamaqunddy and the other the Magua- 
davie, and a due north line from eiMier would 
strike the range of highlands laid down on that 
map. On the Commissioners' map, the high- 
lands are delineated as extending in continuous 
ranges along the whole length of the river St. 
Lawrence from the Connecticut and Chau- 
diere, to the extremity of the cape or projection 
of Gaspe. On this map, they rise in elevation 



16 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

toward the east and assume the appellation of 
Albany or Notre Dame mountains. On iMitch- 
ell's map, these are called Ladij mountains. 
The latter map differs from the other, in giving 
to tlie ranges of highlands further up the river 
St. Lawrence, as well as in the quarter below, 
a more rolling and diversified direction,- — in 
some parts obliquing or inclining more to a par- 
allel with the various sources of the different 
rivers, instead of marking them off by a uniform 
dividing course. In neither of the maps, are 
there any traces of higlands south or west of 
the river St. John, to the north of either of the 
rivers St. Croix ; nor any where indeed above 
those rivers, east of the Penobscot. On the 
( ommissioners' map, it may be mentioned, that 
the St. John is also called the Clyde^ to keep 
up in some manner, it is probable, the mere 
distinction betvveeiT New England and A'ovrt 
Scotia, which was of less compass than Acadia, 
unless the Penobscot was to be considered the 
St. Croix. The western limit of Nova Scotia, 
by the original grants, was the St Croix, to 
whatever river that name was to be affixed. 

There is no species of evidence that address- 
es itself more sensibly and satisfactorily to the 
mind, on a subject like this, than that which is 
found in the language of m;i|)s and charts. 
Tiiere is a more lively commnnication ol knowl- 
edge on some points to the eye, than the ear. 
Language of lliat kind is more universal, tlian 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 17 

that of books and manuscripts. Every son and 
daughter of Adam is said to be interested in 
geography. These delineations of the observ- 
able parts of the globe, are drawn from all the 
living sources of information. They expose 
themselves to perpetual observation and cor- 
rection, and no gross error can go long uncor- 
rected. Tlie aspect of the country elevated 
above the shore is one that would present itself 
to the navigator, while its profile might remain 
comparatively obscure and unperceived upon 
the interior. These elevations approached, on 
one side, the St. Lawrence, and on the other 
the Bay of Chaleurs, where there were fishing 
stations. It can hardly be conceived, that all 
these appearances, which figure so frequently 
in the geographical documents of the day, can 
be resolved into optical illusions. At any rate, 
if such were the faith of the age, it serves to 
establish the understanding of any act in rela- 
tion to the subject. For the state of opinion 
and feeling prevailing at that period, we may 
refer to the American History of Douglas, 
which was under revision from 1746 to 1760. 
At this last period, it will be noted, the conquest 
of Canada was not completed. 

An edition of Douglas's Historical and Po- 
litical Summary of the British Settlements in 
North America, was published in London, in 
1760. In the peace of Utrecht, he maintains 
that it was omitted to settle a line between the 
*2 



18 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

English colonies and those of France, from 
north to soull) ; and that it would be desirable 
to attend to this, in the proposed negotiation lor 
peace. Referring to natural boundaries as the 
most advantageous, he represents the river St. 
Lawrence, the lakes Ontario and Erie, and the 
Apalachian mountains, as an eligible French and 
English boundary. The river St. Lawrence, 
it will be recollected, was considered and treat- 
ed by Great Britain, as the southern boundary 
ofCanada. The eastern part of New-England 
extended in its full breadth to the bank of that 
river; and it was not contemplated, at that mo- 
ment, that the French were to be dislodged en- 
tirely from the St. Lawrence. He then lakes 
' a cursory view,' as he terms it, ' of the south- 
ern or British side of this great river, and of 
the lakes Ontario and Erie, and of the Apala- 
chian mountains, or blue hills'; and proceeds, — 
' From Cape Rosier es, at the southern side of 
the river St. Lawrence, to La Riviere Puanie, 
or the Indian tribe called the Mission of Bisan- 
court, over against Les Trois Rivieres, are 
about four hundred miles. The barrenness of 
the soil, the impracticableness of the mountains, 
which lie but a small way south of the s^reat 
river, the rapidity of the short rivers or runs if 
water from these mountains, render the coun- 
try inhospitable, there being no proper water 
carriage for Indian canoes.' He afterwards 
passes to the southern portion of his proposed 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 19 

boundary, the Apalachian mountains, or great 
blue hills, land which he describes as much 
elevated iii the air, and appearing, at a consid- 
erable distance, of a sky color. But it is fjr 
the fact of a commonly-known and well-deter- 
mined range of highlands bordering on the St. 
Lawrence, and extending from Cape Rosieres 
to opposite Trois Rivieres, that we quote this 
descripiion of Douglas. The short rivers mark 
the declivities. The account of tlie soil, and 
the aspect of the coun'ry, agree with that given 
by the French the century before. A map is 
published with it, presenting various ranges of 
Iiighlands in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence, 
and mouth of the St. John ; and public atten- 
tion is particularly called to the subject of a 
boundary. 

Some attention has been drawn of late, to 
the situation of a small French Acadian settle- 
ment or colony on the border of the river St. 
John, above the Great Falls. This is a rem- 
nant of the ancient French population of Aca- 
dia, of whose removal f>'om their farms, and 
banishment from Nova Scotia, so painful an 
account is given from Halliburton's History, in 
a former number.* A brief and touching ac- 
count of the character and sufferings of those 
early inhabitants of that territory, is given by 
Barbe Marbois, who pronounces them an ex- 
cellent race of Frenchmen. The language 

* January, 1830. 



20 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

which they speak is said to be of purer French, 
than that in use among the Canadians ; and 
their ancestry has been identified with the dis- 
banded regiment of Carignan, — raised at a time, 
when the impoverished ranks of the French 
noblesse, excluded by the hereditary prestige 
from all other employment, were content to oc- 
cupy the humblest stations in military life. Dif- 
ferent pretexts have been assijrned for the ex- 
pulsion of these people from Nova Scotia, the 
most familiar of which is that of their sympa- 
thy with the fortunes of their European breth- 
ren, in their conflicts with the English arms on 
this continent. Douglas says that, — ' By the 
peace of Utrecht, the French in Nova Scotia, 
upon their taking the British Government oaths, 
were to continue in tlieir possessions ; the not 
appropriated lands, by the King of Great Bri- 
tain's instruction, were reserved for protestant 
subjects ; notwithstanding this instruction, the 
French Roman Catholic subjects, as they swarm, 
make free with these crown lands.' 'There- 
fore,' he remarks very coolly, in a note to tliis 
dry text, written jirobably at the first publication 
of his work, 'they must be removed by some 
subsequent treaty, — or be elbowed out, — or 
their language and religion must gradually be 
changed.' And again he suggests, with much 
sang fioid, that ' tiie regiments in garrison at 
Louisburg may be conv»'yed to Nova Scotia, 
and cantoned among the French settlements, — 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 21 

after some short time, to be disbanded with some 
encouragement of lands, and other th'ngs, as 
settlers. Thus we may by degrees elbow the 
French out of their langunge and religion, — 
and perhapjs out of their lands.' 

An Indian barrier was proposed by France 
to England, in the negotiations at Paris, in 1761, 
upon the country of the Ohio, and the region 
toward Canada. But this was rejected by Mr. 
Pitt ; and the treaty of Paris, which put an end 
to the dominion of France over the whole ter- 
ritorv, produced the nroclamationof 1763. This 
was a great act of State policy ; the design of 
which was, as already adverted to, to circum- 
scribe the colonies, and, under color of fonning 
Indian reserves, in reality to convert the inte- 
rior of the country inlo a grand royal domain. 
It was so devised, as to create a geographical 
barrier to the advance of the colonies in that 
direction. The crown seems to have been con- 
sidered as coming into the possession by con- 
quest ; and, in succeeding to the pretensions, 
appears also to have adopted the views of 
France, — that is, of environing the colonies with 
a frontier that should oppose their further pro- 
gress, and prevent their developement. It is 
mentioned in the Annual Register of 1763, 
which records this proclamation, thut great 
pains were taken to come at an exact knowl- 
edge of every thing in regard to the state of 
the recent conquests on this continent ; and, 



22 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

in framing the new Government of Canada, it 
is stated in that work, that, after quiiting Lake 
Champlain, and departing from the forty-fifth 
parallel of latitude, the line was carried ' ciuite 
to the Gulf of St. Lmcrence, through the high- 
lands which .separate the rivers which fall into 
the great river of Canada, from those which 
fall into the ocean.' We quote this well-known 
work, merely to show the popular understand- 
ing of that part of the proclamation. 

This mode of marking off the limits of the 
colonies to the west and north-west, hy n line 
along the heads of tlie rivers falling into the 
Atlantic, was a favorite one in forming that pro- 
clamation. It contained a prohibition, that, ' no 
governor or commander-in-chief of our other 
colonies or plantations in America, (besides the 
Governments of Quebec and Florida establish- 
ed by that act,) do presume for the present, 
and until our further pleasure be known, to 
grant warrant of survey, or pass patents for any 
lands, beyond the heads or sovrces of any of the 
rivers ichich fall into the Atlantic ocean from 
the west or north-west. It was hutlier declared 
to be the royal will and pleasure to reserve, for 
the present, ' under our sovereignty, protection, 
and dominion, for the said Indians, all the land 
and territoiy not included within the limits of 
our said three new Governments, or wiiliin the 
limits of the territory grant(Ml to the Hudson's 
Bay Company, as also all the land and territo- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 23 

ries lying to the westward of the sources of the 
rivers ivhichfall into the sea from the west and 
north-west, as aforesaid.' This Hmitation of 
the practical jurisdiciion and extent of the colo- 
nies, seems to have reached from the Ohio to- 
ward Lake Ontario ; and pursuing the line of 
demarkation, established as the southern boun- 
dary of the Government of Quebec, — which 
constituted a considerable part of the exterior 
boundary of the Provinces, especially those of 
New-England, — along the forty-fifth degree of 
latitude, it is described as ' striking to the 
JVorth-east, along the highlands, which divide 
the rivers that empty themselves into the grand 
river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into 
the sea; and also along the North coast of the 
Bay de Chaleurs, and the coast of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres.' This idea of a 
limitation of the Atlantic provinces, by the 
sources of rivers falling into the sea from the 
West and North-west, seems to have been ex- 
tended from the Florida coast on the Gulf of 
Mexico, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; and 
was further carried into effect in the division 
of the province of Quebec from the territories 
of New- England and Nova Scotia, by the ad- 
ditional mode of description thus expressed for 
the purpose of absolute certainty, and to render 
this last line of demarkation as definite, as the 
parallel of" latitude crossing Lake Champlain 
was supposed to be. 



24 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

We may notice, in passing, how much more 
the limits of the old colonies of Great Britain 
were abridgeri, by the complete triumph of their 
joint arms, and the final success of the negotia- 
tions, than they would have been, if the French 
had not been entirely expelled from their pos- 
sessions. In the various projected expeditions 
to Canada, in the conquest of Louisburg and 
that of Nova Scotia, it was the opinion of John 
Adams, to the last, that New England had ex- 
pended more blood and treasure, than all the 
rest of the British empire. JVova Scotia was 
originally and pro|ierly a British Province, 
granted, in the first place, after the accession of 
James of Scotland to the English throne ; and, 
although yielded up by the policy that jirevailed 
in the courts of Charles 1. and Charles II. in 
the treaties of St. Germains and Breda, recov- 
ered once by Cromwell, and again by New 
England, in 1G90. It was then incor|)orated, 
with the intervening territory of Sagadahock 
and the Province of Maine, in one common 
charter with the Province of Massachusetts 
Bay. It was again relinquished to France, by 
the treaty of Ryswick, in 1G97 ; re-conquered 
by a force from New England and Great Bri- 
tain, and finally ceded by France to Great Bri- 
tain, in 17 12. It was not formally re-annexed 
to the Province of Massachusetts ; and the 
power of that Province over it was suspended, 
during the dispute concerning the limits of Aca- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 25 

dia. The grant of JVova Scotia to Sir Wil- 
liam Ahxander, as well as that of the territory 
of Sagadahock to the Duke of York, extended 
to the river St. iMwrence ; and that whole 
country continued to be considered a British 
possession, after the treaty of Utrecht. We 
may, therefore, regard these territories as com- 
ing within the description of that principle of 
limitation, \^'hich Great Britain thought fit to 
apply to the proclamation of 1763, of marking 
off her Atlantic colonies by the sources of riv- 
ers, falling into the sea from the west and north- 
west. The application of that principle was 
strenghtened upon this frontier, by the well- 
known heights of land, adjacent to the river St. 
Lawrence, and dividing the rivers flowing into 
it, from those emptying into the ocean ; and 
the same, whether falling into the Bay of Cha- 
leurs, Miramichi, or the Bay of Fundy. All 
these streams were equally determined, as flow- 
ing from the north or north-west. 

In erecting the Province of Nova Scotia, in 
1763, it was built upon the base of the new 
Government of Quebec, established by the 
proclamation. The proclamation was dated in 
October. The commission to Governor Wil- 
mot, by which the Province of Nova Scotia 
was defined, was in November, 1763. The 
northern and western, or inland boundaries, 
were thus described, viz. To the northward, 
by the southern boundary of the Province of 
3 



26 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

Quebec, — ' and to the westward, although our 
said Province hath anciently extended, and 
doth of right extend, as lar as the river Penfa- 
gonet or Penobscot ; it shall be bounded by a 
line drawn from Cape Sable across the en- 
trance of the Bay of Fundy, to the mouth of 
the river St. Croix, by the said river to its 
source, and by a line drawn due north from 
tljence to the southern hoinidanj of (^uebec.^ 
This description constituted the north-ivest an- 
gle of JVova Scotia. 

The Annual Register, for 1763, contained 
a new map of the Biitish dominions in North 
America, wiili the limits of the Governments 
annexed thereto, by the treaty of peace, and 
settled by the proclamation. On this map, the 
southern boundary of the Province of Quebec 
is marked as passing along fronv Lake Cham- 
plain, in the forty-fifth degree of latitude, to the 
north of Connecticut river, and then alons; high- 
lands, approaching ihe river St. Lawrence, and 
rounding north of the river St. John, to ihe 
head of the Bay of Chaleurs. On the snme 
map, a line is drawn directly north Irom the 
river St. Croix, u itil it strikes the r'ulge of high- 
lands north of the St. John, along which the 
southern boundary of (Quebec is continued. In 
the former maps, such as Mitchell's and Jeffe- 
ry's, which have been mentioned, this line went 
acroFs these highlands to the St. Lawrence ; 
but here it is interrupted and stops short. The 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 27 

same map appears in subsequent editions of the 
Register, to the end of the American war. 
Here the north-west anale of JVova Scotia Is 
mnrked out to the eyes of all the world. 

The Province of Massachusetts, which other- 
wise might have well revived its right under 
the charter of William and Mary, to go even to 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was thus restricted 
on the east to the river St. Croix ; and one side 
of its territory was taken off. To tliis proceed- 
ing, however, we do not hear of any objections 
being made by the Province. But die south- 
ern boundary of Quebec, then established, pre- 
sented another barrier to the north, which was 
not regarded with satisfaction. The grant to 
the Duke of York in J 664, which has been 
mentioned, was of ' all that part of the mainland 
of New England, beginning at a certain place, 
called or known bv the name of St. Croix. 
next adjoining to JVew Scotland, in Amer- 
ica, and from thence along the sea-coast,' to 
Pemaquid river, and thence to the Kennebec, 
' and so upwards, by the shortest course to the 
river Canada, nortliward.' This grant, which 
was conOrmed by Charles again, after the trea- 
ty of Breda in 1674, was incorporated, as we 
have mentioned, to its vAJiole extent, in the Pro- 
vince charter. Some little obscurity, indeed, 
was cast upon this point, by Mr. Gallatin, in his 
edition of the Land Laws, and a suggestion 
was dropped by him, that there was probably 



28 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

some omission, in the description of the Pro- 
vince chnrter, to square the northern boMnd-ary 
of this intermediate territory witli ihe Gorges 
grants, with vvliich he compared it. T'^is no- 
tion was furlljer countenanced, by a hasty ex- 
pression in a letter of that gentleman to the 
Secretary of Stale, after the conclusion of peace 
at Ghent, a paper not |)repared lor any public 
purpose, and brought out upon the call of what 
is termed the Russell Correspondence. This re- 
iriark was, that the territory to the north of forty- 
five degrees, eastward of the Penobscot river, 
did not belong to IMassachiisetts, as would ap- 
pear by recurring to her charters, but that the 
property was in the United States. Mr. Galla- 
tin has since shown, that he was com})letely 
mistaken in that respect ; and nothing, indeed, 
is .necessary, beyond a recurrence to the char- 
ters, to make that mistake manifest. In the 
Province charier of 1G91, it is true, there is a 
declaration, that 'no grants of any lands, lying 
or extending from the river of Sagadahock to 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Canada rivers,^ 
&z:c. by the Government of the Province, should 
be valid without the assent of the crown ; be- 
cause, in fact, the j)roperty of that territory had 
accrued, through the succession of the Duke 
of York, to the crown, and therefore the crown 
harl a perfect right to limit and control the dis- 
position of it by the savimr ol the charter. Sub- 
ject to this reservation of a confirming power, 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 29 

tlie Government of Massnchuseits seems to 
liave been authorized to make as good grants 
witliin that region, as in other portions of its 
territor}'. 

It is plain enough from these circumstances, 
as we may presume to believe, that Massachu- 
setts had no interest in inventing an artificial 
harrier to interrupt her own progress, as a Pro- 
vince, to the St. Lawrence, Tlie opinions of 
the Attorney and Solicitor General of the 
crown, Yorke and Talbot, both afterwards 
Lord Chancellors, had been pronounced, 
(1731,) that the intervening tract of territory 
between the Kennebec and St. Croix was 
granted by the charter to the inhabitants of the 
Province, and that the rights of Government, 
granted to the Province, extended over it. 
The Lords of the Board of Trade, as it seems, 
sanctioned the publication of Mitchell's map in 
1755, bounding this territory, with other parts 
of New England and also Nova Scotia, upon 
the St. Lawrence. The royal proclamation of 
1763, however, established a barrier of high- 
lands, portioning off a strip of tiie country con- 
tiguous to the river St. Lawrence, as a part of 
the Canadian Government ; and the Lords 
thereupon began to think, that the Massachu- 
setts Province could at least claim no right to 
the lands on the river St. Lawrence, notwith- 
standing the opinion formerly expressed on that 
point, though they did not deny her jurisdiction 
*3 



30 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

over the territory. Massachusetts had made 
grants east of the Penobscot, but not upon the 
St. Lawrence ; and while she was desirous of 
obtaining a confirmation of those grants from 
the crown, the crown also warned a release of 
the right of Massachusetts to the south bank of 
the St. Lawrence. Lord Hillsborough interio- 
gated the agent of the Province, Mr. Mauduit, 
whether he had any authority from the Pro- 
vince, relative to the lands upon the south of 
the river St. Lawrence. It seems to have been 
proposed, that if the Province would relinquish 
to tlie crown tlie claim under their charter to th.e 
lands on the St. Lawrence, designed by the 
proclamation to form part of the Government 
ot Quebec, the crown would make no question 
concerning the validity of any of their grants of 
lands, leaving them to the St. Croix> and from 
the sea-coast of the Bay of Fundy to the bounds 
of the province of Quebec ; and JMr. Mauduit 
and Mr. Jackson came to the conclusion, which 
was communicated to the General Court, that 
' the narrow tract of land, which lits beyond the 
sources of all your rivers, and is watered by 
those which run into the river St. Lawrence,^ 
misht therefore be conceded to the crown, 
which considered it of so much importance ' to 
preserve the continuity of the Government of 
Quebec' 

The Quebec Act of 1774 only transposes 
the description of the proclamation ©f 1763, be- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 31 

ginning at the other extremity, and returning 
' by a hne from the Bay of Chaleurs, along the 
highlands which divide the rivers that empty 
them>elves into the river St. Lawrence from 
those which fall into the sea,' to a point of lati- 
tude (45°) on Connecticut river. This well- 
remembered act of Parliament followed the 
forty-fifth parallel of latitude to the river St. 
Lawrence, and through Lake Ontario, and 
upon the south-eastern bank of Lake Erie to 
the boundary of Pennsylvania, and by the west- 
ern boundary of that Province to the river Ohio, 
and along the Ohio to the Mississippi. All the 
territory to the north of this line and south of 
the Hudson's Bay Company's limit, was incor- 
porated, as belonging to the crown of Great 
Britain, into tlie Province of Quebec. This 
was a more absolute and decisive demarkation 
throughout its extent, than that which was trac- 
ed by the proclamation of 1763 ; but it was a 
result of the same policy. There can be no 
question, we suppose, that both the royal proc- 
lamation of 1763, and the parliamentary act of 
1 774, were innovations upon the Province char- 
ter of Massachusetts ; and the propriety of our 
referring to these measures at all, in vindication 
of our title to the remainder of our territory, has 
been questioned, on the ground that they were 
complained of in the colonies, as being infringe- 
ments. Still they may be referred to as acts of 
the British Government, although we might 



32 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

have bad no cause lo be contented with ihem. 
They may be referred lo as authoritative acts of 
that Government, establisliing the bounds of 
their recently acquired empire, between which 
and their elder dependencies on the seabord, 
they were anxious to establish such an indus- 
trious partition. We may well refer to those 
acts as establishing the existence of certain mon- 
uments, to which they distinctly and carefully 
refer themselves, as separating the inferior tri- 
butaries of the St. Lawrence from the more ma- 
jestic streams, that find their way, like the St. 
Lawrence, to the ocean. And alihougli we 
may have originally demurred to the rightful- 
ness of these arbitrary arrangements, it was 
never denied that this delitnitaiion was within 
the plenitude of British power, so far as it relat- 
ed to New England. It was in regard to the dis- 
position of the western territory, that the great- 
est objection was made, in respect to the strip 
taken off from the St. Laivrence, as well as the 
separation of Nova Scotia. The Province of 
Massachusetts, as appears from Mr. Mauduit's 
communication, seems to have acquiesced ; in- 
deed we have never heard of a question raised 
in regard to their final operation on this fron- 
tier. 

We may refer to these acts, therefore, we 
conceive, notwithstanding they were abridg- 
ments of our limits, as public declarntwns of 
facts; and the proclamations of them made by 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 33 

those who had the means, and the best means of 
knowledge in their possession. Few have the 
mfMns of seeing and judging with their own eyes 
of the truth of these facts, but all may be said to 
have access to these archives, which have been 
hung up on high, and give to these plain and pal- 
pable descriptions the character of truisms in po- 
litical geography. These highlands stand forward, 
upon the proud front of the public faith of Great 
Britain, as though they were visibly marked on 
the horizon to our view. Officially there may 
be those who, at this late day, may affect to 
doubt their existence ; but if they do not exist 
as they are described upon the face of nature, 
falsehood is then stamped upon the face of those 
royal and imperial documents ; and confidence 
is impaired in the solidity of those principles, on 
the strength of which we ought to be able to 
repose with as much certainty, as we might 
upon the constancy of the laws of nature. 

Besides these solemn and authorative asser- 
tions of the British crown and pailiajgent, there 
is also the universal evidence of the maps that 
were published from that period in England, it 
is sufficient to say, to the close of the Atnerican 
war, although the remark might be extended 
down to a much later day. In all the maps 
published during these twenty years, there was 
a continuous and visible representation of high- 
lands, receding to the right of the waters falling 
into the St. Lawrence, and to the north of all 



34 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

the waters flowing into the Atlantic or any of 
its bays. There were as many as twenty maps 
of this description, presented to the umpire. 
There were the common maps, designed to 
exhibit the geography of the country ; maps of 
the continent ; of the British dominions of North 
America ; and maps to illustrate the history of 
those dominions. There were Danville's maps, 
improved with English surveys; there were 
maps corrected from the materials of Governor 
Pownal ; there was the American Military 
Pocket Atlas, published at the commencement 
of the Revolution, to show the seat of war in 
the northern colonies ; the map of the Province 
of Quebec ; and Faden's map of North Amer- 
ica, from the latest discoveries, engraved for 
Carver's Travels, in 1778 and 1781. On all 
these maps, we believe, without exception, the 
north-west angle of Nova Scotia is laid down in 
the same manner, by a line from the St. Croix, 
north of the St. John. 

With re^rence to these maps of the country 
from 1763 to 1783, they may be adduced not 
merely for the evidence they afford of the geo- 
graphical state of the country at that period in 
themselves, but because they go to establish 
the full belief, that then was and has ever since 
been entertained, in respect to those great fea- 
tures of rivers and higiilands, by whicii ihe 
face of the country was markerl. Let the fact 
be as it may, this was the opinion of the age, 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 35 

and it shows what was universally thought and 
understood to be the truth, at the time of the 
treaty of 1783. This evidence addre;5sed it- 
self to the eyes of every man in Europe or 
America, at an era of great interest and inquiry. 
It furnished a panorama of the country to those 
who never could expect to be able to trace the 
outline except from the plate before them, and 
carried its knowledge into every library, into 
every public office, and almost into every compt- 
ing-room in the kingdom or on this continent. 
It was the guide of the tourist, it was the com- 
panion of the man of science, and the manual of 
the military officer. There can be no suspicion 
of any fabrication. These maps were all pub- 
lished in London, under the observation, if not 
under the actual sanction, of the colonial de- 
partment. So far back as Mitchell's map, 
which was published in 1755, and the map 
published by the English commissioners on the 
limits of Acadia in the same year, and before 
these objects can be imagined to have been 
raised into existence in opposition to us, these 
ajijjearances present themselves. For fifty 
years, maps of this description have been pub- 
lished and sold at a shop in the Strand, facing 
toward Charing Cross. If it be suggested, 

that these maps are copies from one another, 

which in some respects they are very far from 
being, — what better proof can there be of the 
steadiness and singleness of convictien upon 



36 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

that score, and which extended down, unabated, 
for half a century ? The pertinence ol lliis 
species of proof was called in question before 
the arbiter. Map A, it was contended, was 
the only piece of evidence of that kind, proper 
for his consideration ; and this map A, was a 
mere plan of the territory in dispute, adjusted by 
Mr. Gallatin and Dr. Tiarks, and annexed to 
the convention. It was nothina bnt chalk. But 
the physical existence of the highlands describ- 
ed in the British acts has not been disproved, 
although it has been disputed. Further surveys 
of that region from one end of the direction 
given to the other, (an operation which has 
never been accomplished since the treaty of 
Ghent,) may vary the altitude of these high- 
lands ; but they can never alter the state of the 
fact as to the fir:n opinion of the age, and the 
actual intentions of the British Government in 
respect to this boundary, in all its proceedings, 
from the peace of 1763 to the treaty of 1783. 
What may be asserted wiiii confidence, even 
at this day, when nuich has been done, and it 
is impossible to say withoijt any success, to de- 
face tlie lines and monuments which were well 
established in former times, is this ; that there 
is a historical chain or connection of highlands 
sweepinir round the heads of our great rivci'Sj 
lohich flow into the Atlantic^ namely^ the Ken- 
nebec, Penobscot and St. John, and slielving 
comparatively very near to tlie coast of the 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 37 

river St. Lawrence. Such was the state of the 
fact in the public mind, at the peace of 1783. 

The second article of the treaty of 1783, in 
order, as it premised, ' that all disputes which 
might arise in future on the subject of the boun- 
daries of the said United States may be pr event- 
ed,'' established their boundaries in the first 
place in the following manner ; from the north- 
west angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which 
is formed by a line drawn due north from the 
source of ttie St. Croix to the highlands, — which 
(highlands) divide the rivers that fall into the 
Atlantic ocean from those which fall into the 
river St. Lawrence; — and again, as they are 
described in another part of the same article, — ■ 
along the said highlands which divide the rivers 
that empty themselves into the river St. Law- 
rence, from those which fall into the Atlantic 
ocean, to the north-westernmost Isead of Con- 
necticut river, he. This is the beginning of the 
description designed to prevent all disputes ; 
and it is most remarkable, that the present dis- 
pute arises in relation to that point, at ivhich 
the boundaries of the United States commenced; 
— that point which beyond all others is believed 
to have some positive character of certainty at- 
tached to it. That is the point which, it seems, 
from the opinion of the King of the Nether- 
lands, was not only undefined, but left in a con- 
dition incapable of ever being defined. It was 
singular, indeed, that the first step in the pro- 
4 



38 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

cess should have been a false one. It would 
be most singular, that that which was adopted 
as an axiom, should not only prove to be a 
problem, but turn out to have no proper exis- 
tence whatever. 

With the knowledge of these maps before 
them, for it ajjpears as a fact that sundry others 
besides Mitchell's were consulted, and with this 
knowledge necessarily common to the English 
as well as American negotiators at Paris, they 
adopted the existing highland Canadian boun- 
dary, — to be intersected by a direct north line 
from the St. Croix ; and still further to char- 
acterize and confirm this homier of higlilands, 
they describe it as dividing the rivers that fall 
into the St. Lawrence horn those that descenil 
into the Atlantic. The phraseology is thus 
guarded, and varied, and reiterated, as if to 
preclude the possibility of ' dispute.' Indeed 
it was pointed out, in defence of the treaty, in 
the parliamentary debate nj)on the preliminary 
articles, as its great excellenct^ ' that it so 
clearly and plainly described the limits of the 
dominions of Great l^ritain and Anicrica, that 
it was impossible they could be mistaken; there- 
fore It was impossible there should in future be 
any dispute hetween them on the score of 
boundaries.' In the House of Lords, the treaty 
was censured with severity for suirendering the 
keys, the bolts, the bars, the i)asses, and carry- 
ing-places of Canada ; and the higldands de- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 39 

scribed in the treaty were distinctly recognized, 
fis being iiear the river St. Lawrence. A map 
was engraved to accompany and illustrate the 
reports of the debates in Parliament on the 
Preliminary Articles, and was published in sev- 
eral forms, in which the highlands are laid 
down precisely according to the former maps 
from 1763. Haifa dozen maps were publish- 
ed in London in the year 1783, delineating the 
boundaries of the United States ; and these 
were succeeded by others in London and Paris 
within another year for that purpose. It is 
needless to say, that they all agreed in that 
feature of the territory which now forms the 
subject of dispute, and the force of which is 
now designed to be done away by the dubious 
opinion of the King of the Netherlands. 

To pass to a later period in the history of 
this subject, — in the British argument under 
the 5ih article of the treaty of 1794, concern- 
ing the St. Croix it was insisted that the north- 
ern limit of Nova Scotia was a line along the 
highlands, which divide the rivers that empty 
themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from 
those which fall into the sea. This argument 
directly identified the northern limit of Nova 
Scotia with the southern boundary of Canada, 
as before established. And taking this as a 
base, it sought to find the river St. Croix by de- 
termining in the first place the north-west angle 
of J^ova^^ Scotia, projected from the highlands. 
Another operation was considered and acknowl- 



40 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

edged as incontestible at the same lime, viz. 
that the north line requisite to form this angle 
' must cross the St. John of necessiiy^'' — but it 
would cross it, it was said, as an advantage to 
Great Britain, in a part of it where it ceu^es to 
he navigable, that is, above the Great Falls, 
' almost at the foot of the highlands.' This ef- 
fect was admitted at that day (in 1798) with- 
out any demur by Mr. Liston, then British 
minister in this country ; and at that moment, 
no person had ever thought of denying it. It 
resulted as a dead certainty from the physical 
formation of the country, for the reason given 
by the British agent. That was, that the sources 
of the St. John are to the westward, ^ not only 
of the western boundary line of Nova Scotia, 
but of the sources of the Penobscot, and even 
of the Kennebec' It may be added, although 
somewhat in advance, that in the argument de- 
livered under the 4th article of the treaty of 
Ghent, relating to the Passamaquoddy Islands, 
by the British agent, it was ajrain allowed, that 
the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, mentioned 
in the treaty of J7S3, was the same as the 
noilh-uest angle of Nova Scotia, as con- 
stituted in conncclion with the Province of 
Quebec in 1763. The map evidence laying 
down the boundary, according to the treaty of 
178.>, between the United States and Nova 
Scotia and Canada, as that bouiidary is de- 
scribed in a note to Lord Ilariowby in 1804, 
'alonLT the hiiihlamls boundius: to the southern 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 41 

waters of the St. Lawrence,^ is continued by 
an unbroken succession down to the war, in 
1812. 

Even after the close of the last war with 
Great Britain, in 1815, we have the descrip- 
tion of the boundary in question, in a work of 
so much authority and importance, as the ^Topo- 
graphical Description oj the Province ofLotver 
Canada, by Colonel Bouchette, Surveyor-Gen- 
eral of the Province, afterwards employed as a 
surveyor under the treatv of Ghent, and now 
the author of the large statistical work on the 
British dominions in North America, recently 
published in Londo-n. His description is so 
clear and conclusive, that we venture to quote 
it again. From the high banks opposite the 
city of Quebec, he describes a gradual ascent 
towards a first range of mountains. ' Beyond 
this range, at about 6fty miles distance, is the 
ridge generally denominated iheLand^s Height, 
dividing the waters that fall into the St. Law- 
rence from those taking a direction toward the 
Atlantic ocean, and along whose summit is sup- 
posed to run the boundary line between the ter- 
ritories of Great Britain and the United States 
of America. This chain commences upon the 
eastern branch of the Connecticut river, takes 
a north-easterly course, and terminates near 
Cape Rosieres in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.' 

We might adduce also the splendid maps 
published by Colonel Bouchette at the same 
*4 



42 north-ea:,tern boundaky. 

lime, dedicated to the Prince Regent, intendecJ 
to accompany bis work, and to illustrate the 
description. We might also refer again to the 
work itself for particular descriptions of several 
parts of the highlands, observed and sketched 
by Colonel Bouchette ; but we fear to pre- 
sume too far upon the patience of our readers, 
in pursuing this almost exhausted topic ; and it 
would be only repeating a summary of them, 
which will be found in a former number of this 
journal."^ It affords a picturesque representa- 
tion of ridges or ranges of highlands, from the 
swell of land, in which the Connecticut river 
takes its rise two thousand feet above the level 
of the sea, — and whence continual falls mark 
the shorter descent of the Chaudiere, to uhat 
may be termed the trosachs of the Temiscouatu 
portage^ and thence supposed to continue to the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is through this pass 
that the road from the St. John to the St. Law- 
rence, effected with great difficulty about the 
time of the conclusion of the American war, 
crosses the highlands ; and here is established, 
by the concurrence of testimony of inhabitants 
on the JMadawaska river with marks that still 
remain upon the earth, the southern boundary 
of Canada. This has been considered as fixed, 
between thirty and forty years. No process 
can be executed on this side of the pass from 

* North- American Review, Vol. XXVI. pp. 337—340. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 43 

Canada. Several posts still appear, though lat- 
terly ill a decaying state, which are known to 
have been placed there for the purpose of de- 
signating the boundary ; and it is fixed as a 
fact, that Mount St. Francis, which divides the 
waters at the Temiscoiiatu Portage, has long 
been holden as being the southern boundary of 
Canada at that place. Practically, this would 
seem to put an end to all dispute. 

Thv^ proper boundary of the United States, 
according to the description of the treaty of 
1783, which is now somehow obliterated in the 
opinion of the King of the Netherlands, was 
recognised without a shadow of doubt till the 
close of the war in 1814. This last period it- 
self is so pregnant with proof, at once of the 
continued conviction which existed on this sub- 
ject, and of a policy, if possible, to reform it 
to meet an object of which war had disclosed 
the importance, and furnished the opportunity, 
that a production of text passages from British 
publications in the interests of our powerful an- 
tagonist, may here be not without some profit 
and instruction at this season. The most fertile 
repository of tracts and details on this topic, 
mixed up with spicy observations of its own, is 
the Anti-Jacobin Review and True Church- 
man's Magazine. One of the leading topics 
in the volumes of that periodical, for the year 
1814, is the necessity ibr settling a new boun- 
dary between the British colonies and the Uni- 



44 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

ted States. This was the burden of both parts 
of the work ; and it was urged with all the en- 
ergy that was imparted to the British military 
movements in tliis country, upon the successful 
termination of their contest with Bonaparte. 
The season for speaking was supposed to be 
peculiarly favorable, ' as,' it was said, ' a nego- 
tiation is about to open at Gottenburgh, and as 
a powerful British army is about to enforce our 
rights in America. All former treaties between 
the two countries are abrogated and annulled 
by the existing war, and the American Govern- 
ment has lost every claim upon the favor, affec- 
tion, and forbearance of Great Britain, by her 
base and perfidious conduct, in attacking us at 
a time when we were fighting for the freedom 
and independence of Europe. Our ministers, 
therefore, must be disposed to derive every le- 
gitimate advantage from the success of our 
arms, &ic.' Tiie first subject to which those 
reviewers allude, in this immediate connection, 
as of primary importance, is, 'an exclusive privi- 
lege to be secured to our own colonies in North 
America, to supply our West India Islands with 
all those necessary articles, which they, here- 
tofore, chiefly derived from the United States ;' 
and secondly, they state 'the moat iujportant 
object to be secured by a treaty of peace, is 
the settlement of a new bounddnj between the 
two countries.' Afterwards, on another occa- 
sion, they recommend the advantage of retain- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 45 

ing possession of the islands in Passamaquoddy 
Bay for the benefit of the trade, navigation, and 
fisheries of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ; 
and express the hope ' that whilst we have such 
a naval force on that station, and such an army 
to co-operate with it, Penobscot will he taken 
possession of. and a new boundary line estab- 
lished between JYeiv Brunswick and the United 
States.^ 



For detailed inforjnation on this topic, ref- 
erence is made to Knoxh Extra Official Pa- 
pers^ published by Debret. But the most per- 
tinent and expressive text for these useful re- 
marks is contained in a production entitled, ' A 
compressed view of the points to be discussed 
in treating with the United States of America,' 
with two maps, by J. M. Richardson, published 
the same year ; from which we borrow the fol- 
lowing extracts, as we find them making a con- 
spicuous figure in the foreground, in the work 
from which we have quoted. 

' In concluding a treaty of peace with the 
United States, not only ought the main feature 
of the war, the inviolate maintenance of our 
maritime rights, to be kept in view, but the 
scarcely less important object, the preservation 
of the British North American colonies, ought 
not to be overlooked. To secure this last, it is 
requisite to advert to one grand point, the neces- 
sity of the establishment of a nein line of boun- 
dary^ between the British and the American 



46 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

possessions/ &lc. Tri regard to the boundary 
line, as supposed to be fixed in 1783, that writer 
remarked, that 'the franiers of that treaty ou the 
part of Great Britain, instead of insisting, ac- 
cording to their instructions, on the river Penob- 
scot being the boundary between New Bruns- 
wick and the United States, abandoned that 
point, aud allowed the line to be carried as far 
as the river St. Croix, giving up an extent of 
sea-coast of nearly fifty leagues, though the Pe- 
nobscot 2oas the utmost northern point to ichich 
the limits of the New England States were before 
supposed to extend. Another special result is 
then pointed out as proceeding from the treaty 
determination of boundary, viz. ' that tliere is 
actually no readily practicable communication 
between Lower Canada and New Brunswick, 
ivithoiit crossing a part of the American territo- 
ry^ now called the Province of Maine.' 

Indeed this strong and well informed pro- 
duction so distinctly marks out and emphatic- 
ally dwells upon all the subjects, that were after- 
wards assumed on the pait of the firilish nego- 
tiators at Ghenti that it can be seen by a sum- 
mary of the points which the writer undertakes 
to deliver in charge to the British plenipotentia- 
ries to be insisted upon, how well prepared they 
were to take high ground for their demands. 
We omit those which 2;o to exclude us from 
trading with their East India possessions, and 
to extinguish our ' pretended right' to the north- 
west coast of America ; and pass over a prohi- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 47 

bition to include the Floridas in the Union, and 
a requirement to be made of the cession of 
JVew Orleans, to ensure a due share of the 
navigation of the Mississippi ; these, with the 
refusal of any commercial treaty with this coun- 
try, having less immediate bearing upon the 
policy of the negotiation in respect to this fron- 
tier. The summary of leading propositions, is 
as follows. 

First, a boundary line throughout the whole 
extent of North America, where the British 
possessions and those of the United States come 
into contact, keeping in view that JYova Scotia 
and A^ew Brunswick be restored to their ancient 
limits, and a free communication with Canada 
be ohtained, without passing through the United 
States. ' If we cannot get to the Penobscot, at 
least let some route or line be drawn, by which 
we may be enabled to have a free communication 
between Canada, and, JVova Scotia. 

Secondly, a new boundary line for the Indian 
tei-ritory ; the integrity of this boundary and the 
independence of the Indians to be guarantied 
by Great Britain ; the Americans to he exclud- 
ed from the navigation of the St. Lawrence, 
and of all its tributary lakes and waters ; and 
no forts or military posts to be erected by the 
Americans in the Indian territory, or on the 
boundaries or jurisdiction within these limits ; 
and a navigable part of the Mississippi to be 
brought within the Canadian territories. 



48 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

Farther, the Americans to be excluded from 
the fisheries on the coast of British North 
America ; especially those of Labrador, New- 
foundland, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
* The third article of the treaty of 1783, which 
admits them to take and dry fish on the shores 
of these colonies, ought to be utterly abrogated, 
and every vestige of its existence taken away. 
Improvident and impolitic in the outset, experi- 
ence has shown that it is much more injurious 
than might, on a superficial view, be supposed. 
' That the Americans were enabled thereby to 
carry our own fish to the West Indies, and de- 
rive great part of the advantages of a trade 
^hich nature points out as belonging to us, is 
too well known.' In addition to this, ' the 
Americans to be excluded from all intercourse 
with the British West India Islands.' A barrier 
had existed, which obstructed the advantages 
to be derived from a true line of policy. This 
barrier consisted in allowing the Americans to 
supply the West India Islands with timber, staves, 
fish and provisions. The war had put an end 
to this imj)olilic system. Earnestly was it to 
be hoped, thai experience would open their 
eyes and induce them to revive, in all its vigor, 
the navigation and colonial systems of England, 
to give every species of encouragement to the 
colonies, and to prohibit in future all intercourse 
between the United States, and the British 
West India Islands. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 49 

Of these objects, forming the bulk of what 
ought to come under discussion, it was the aim 
to produce a conviction of the essential nature, 
to the prosperity and existence of the British 
colonial possessions in North America. The 
persons to be employed as British negotiators 
should go prepared with an advantageous line, 
distinctly marked out, the adoption of which 
should be a sine qua non in the negotiation. 
' The tone of firmness, of decision, of dicta- 
tion, on our part, (we quote the language then 
used) is the only one suitable to our own dig- 
nity, and to the relative circumstances and situ- 
tion of the two countries.' 

Qui Mare teneat, eum necesse reruni potiri ! 

These last passages open a fruitful and not 
entirely pleasant source of recollection and re- 
flection. They cast a long retrospect upon the 
far receding period of our colonial condition. 
They carry us back to the season of 1763, — 
when, after the joint exertion in arms, between 
the strength of the mother country and her chil- 
dren on this .side, the French empire gave way 
upon this continent, and when our fathers saw 
the great materials of that conquered empire 
re-combined upon our back in a new form, 
making a new frontier from south to north, by 
the sources of the streams flowing to the Atlan- 
tic. They rehearse to us the preface of the 
royal proclamation of tliat year, reciting the 
5 



60 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

extensive and valuable acquisition in America, 
lately secured to the crown, by the definitive 
treaty of Paris, and the advice of the privy 
council thereupon, ' being desirous that all our 
loving subjects, as well of our kingdoms, as of 
our colonies in America, may avail themselves 
with all convenient speed, of ihe great benefits 
and advantages, which must accrue therefrom 
to their commerce, manufactures, and naviga- 
tion.^ It remembereth us even further back, of 
the days of Sir Josiah Child, and the close sys- 
tems of our mother country, devised originally 
against the free and virtuous republic of Hol- 
land, and finally transformed and fitted to us, 
as finely as though they had been cut out for 
us. It gives us a lively aud rather racy relish 
of those venerable principles of colonial monop- 
oly, by which our industry was trained in pru- 
dent directions to promote the prosperity ol' the 
mother country, and our native fonrhicbs for the 
arts was encouraged to confine itself to the hon- 
est and peaceful pursuits of husbandry, leaving 
our workshops to be kept in Europe. It re- 
minds us of a certain act entitled an act, 

* To restrain the trade and commerce of the 
Province of Massachnsetts Bay, and New Hamp- 
shire, and colonies of Connecticut, and Rhode 
Island, and Providence Plantations, in Nortii 
America, to Great J3ritain, Irelai.vl, and the 
British islands in the West Indies; and to pro- 
hibit such provinces and colonies from carrying 
on any fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 51 

or Other places therein mentioned, under certain 
conditions and limitations.' 

This was the same act,, it may be observed, 
by which it was established, 

* That the river ichich emptieth itself into Pas- 
samacadie or Passamaquodda Bay, on the west- 
ern side, and is commonly called or known by 
the name of >S'^ Croix river, be held and deemed 
for all the purposes in this act contained, to be 
the boundary line between the provinces of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay and Nova Scotia.' 

If the monopoly of this continent was played 
for as a stake, between England and France, 
and the provinces had to pay the price of the 
contest, and to see their own frontier the forfeit, 
not of defeat, but victory, still they were not 
deprived of the freedom of commerce in this 
hemisphere, and had the same prescriptive lib- 
erty of carrying; their products to the West 
Indies, that they had of a partnership in the 
fur-trade or the fisheries. We were the deni- 
zens of all the English empire upon our coast, 
from the equator to Labrador. In the natural 
connexion of this important subject, we cannot 
forbear to quote the doctrine of the venerable 
John Adams, to whom New England is so 
much indebted for the preservation of her most 
valuable interests. We considered the treaty 
of 1783, he said, as a division of the empire. 



62 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

Our independence^ our rights to territory and 
to the fisheries^ as practised before the Revolu- 
tion, were no more a grant from Britain to ns, 
than the treaty was a grant from us of Canada, 
JVova Scotia, &fc. The treaty was nothing 
more than mutual acknowledgments oj antece- 
dent rights. In defence of a portion of those 
rights, particularly the fisheries, New England, 
and especially Massachusetts, had done more 
than all the rest of the British empire. In the 
various projected expeditions to Canada, not 
defeated through their negligence, in the con- 
quest of Louisburgh in 1745, in the final con- 
quest of Nova Scotia, New England had ex- 
pended more blood and treasure, than all the 
rest of the British empire. In regard to that 
portion of these rights, most intimately connect- 
ed with our limits, namely, the fisheries, we 
urged upon the British ministers, he continued, 
that it was the interest of England herself, that 
we should hold fiist all those rights, because all 
the profits which we make of them, went regu- 
larly to Great Britain, in gold and silver, to 
purchase and pay for their manufactures ; and 
that if it was in their power, which it was not, 
to exclude us from, or abridge those rights, 
they would themselves experience the conse- 
quences of their own unwise policy. This was 
a strain worthy at th(; lime of him, who has been 
well slylcd ' the noblest Roman of them all;' 
and although some things have already taken a 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. oS 

different turn, and other things have acquired a 
steady and determined direction in fulfilment of 
these patriotic and prophetic suggestions, we 
have no occasion to lose sight of them, in re- 
marking the policy that has been pursued by 
Great Britain toward the United States. A 
most remarkable development of this policy 
took place in the negotiations at Ghent, — of 
which the question now pending is a legacy. 

The negotiations which it was the intention 
to open at Gollenburgh, being removed to Ghent, 
the American envoys were surprised by a set 
of demands, as the conditions of peace, which 
went very far to carry the United States back 
to the era before the Revolution. These de- 
mands were, first, — for a general revision of the 
boundary line between Great Britain and the 
United States ; tiie establishment of the Indian 
possessions, as a permanent barrier between the 
British dominions and the territories of.4he 
Union ; the lakes from Lake Ontario to Lake 
Superior to be the proper frontier between the 
two countries; from Lake Superior, the line to 
be pursued to the Mississippi ; and on the north- 
east, a ' variation of the line of frontier, by a 
cession of that portion of the District of Maine ^ 
in the State of Massachusetts, which intervenes 
between JVew Brunswick and Quebec, and pre- 
vents their direct communication.^ The United 
States were further required to relinquish their 
right to the Lakes, and to disarm their force on 
*5 



54 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

the waters and dismantle their fortifications on 
the shores of those lakes, wiihin a limited dis- 
tancOy while the British were to retain the right 
to a military possession on their side of hoth. 
In addition to these demands, besides die islands 
of Passamaqnoddy, which we were to give up, 
we were also to be deprived of the ris^ht to the 
fisheries, and of drvins; our fish upon the shores 
wiihin the limits of British sovereignty. These 
positions seem to have been assumed upon the 
ground, — which on some points was positively 
taken, — that the treaty of 1783 was repealed 
by the declaration of war ; leaving us only to 
negotiate upon the footing of our oiiginal dec- 
laration of independence, so far as the success- 
ful lesidt of the f( rmer war had not been im- 
paired by the military'vicissitudes attending the 
latter. Finally, the British plenipotentiaries 
proposed the vti possidetis. This new preten- 
sion was brought forward, as the American en- 
voys wrote home, ' immediately after the ac- 
counts had been received, that a British force 
had taken possession of all that part of the 
State of Massachusetts^ situated east of Pe- 
nobscot river.^ The British negotiators were in 
a constant state of communication with their 
own Government, refei'ring to its consideration 
every note from our envoys, and waiting a re- 
turn before lh?y transmitted their answer. By 
the time when the negotiations, on the princi- 
ple of uti possidetis^ should be brought to a 



NOUTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 55 

close, the success of tlie expedition destined to 
Louisiana, mi§ht have been determined ; and 
in possession of Penobscot upon one side, and 
New Orleans upon the other, the British Gov- 
ernment might have gone far to execute the 
original project of 1763. 

This proposal of the itti possidetis was strip- 
ped at oiice^ by the American Ministers, of its 
diplomatic circumlocution ; and they met it by 
a direct denial, that they iiad any power to 
cede the territory of the United States. To be 
more distinct, they referred to their former note 
in reply to the broad demand of a new bounda- 
ry, in which they say, they ' perceive, that un- 
der the alleged purpose of openin'g a direct 
communication between two of the British Pro- 
vinces in America, the British Government ?'e~ 
quire a cession of territory forming a part of 
one of the States of the American Union^ — 
and that they propose, without purpose specifi- 
cally alleged, to draw the boundar}'- line west- 
ward,' he. ' They have no authority,' they 
answer, ' to cede any part of the territory of the 
United States ; and to no stipulations to that 
effect will they subscribe.' 

It was to this great object, namely, to obtain 
a new demarkation o( the territorial limits of 
the United States, and a curtailment of their 
rights on this continent and the adjacent ele- 
ment, that the great efforts of the British nego- 
tiators were directed. Thfs was the purpose 



56 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

which they a])proached, under the affectation of 
affording protection to the Indians against our 
resentment; the accusation, of our design to 
conquer Canada, and of the immorahty of our 
acquisition of Florida ; and the assertion, of 
the flaming proof of our insatiable appetite, aris- 
ing from the purchase of Louisiana. Hence, 
also, the allusion to equivalents and offers in 
other quarters, and all the diplomatic expedi- 
ents made use of to compass this purpose. 
Why, at least, his Majesty should be ' precluded 
from availing himself of his means to retain 
these points, which the valor of British arms 
might have placed in his power, because they 
happened to he situated within the territories 
allotted under former treaties to the Govern- 
ment of the United States,^ his JNIajesty's plen- 
ipotentiaries professed themselves entirely una- 
ble to conceive. These records of the negoci- 
ations at Ghent are not revived, however, to 
show the similarity to the project of an Indian 
barrier, presented by France, and repelled by 
Mr. Pitt, in the negotiations at the termination 
of the war of 17 56, nor the broad and glaring 
analogy which they exhibit to the policy of the 
proclamation of 1763. It is for the distinct ad- 
mission they contain, of the proper construction 
of the limits of our territories, and particularly 
of Massachusetts then, now Mctine, according 
to the allotment of former treaties. 

With respect to that part of the boundary of 



NOKTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 67 

the District of Maine which had been brought 
into view, the American envoys had never un- 
derstood that the British plenipotentiaries, who 
signed the treaty of 1783, had contempUited a 
boundary different from that (ixed by the treaty, 
and which required ' nothing more in order to 
he definitively ascertained, than to be survey- 
ed in conformity 2vith its provisions.^ This 
subject not having been a matter of uncertainty 
or dispute, they said they were not instructed 
upon it, and had ' no authority to cede any part 
of the State of Massachusetts, even for what 
the British Government might consider a fair 
equivalent.' 

The treaty of Glient neither raised nor re- 
cognized any doubt about the geography of tlie 
highlands. It gave no new description of them ; 
but adopted the definition that had been in 
known and constant use for fifty years, and al- 
ways understood and applied in one and the 
same manner. It left no more uncertainty 
about the proper existence and character of 
these highlands, than it did respecting Connec- 
ticut river, or the astronomical north. The 
lines had never been surveyed by any mutual 
proceeding between the two countries. Two 
points only had not been ascertained ; — where 
was the north-westernmost source of Connecti- 
cut river ; and where was the point at which a 
line drawn thence along tlie highlands, would 
be intersected by a line drawn due north from 



58 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARV. 

the St. Croix ? The north-westernmost source 
of Connecticut river was to be detained in the 
same manner, that the due north direction from 
the St. Croix was. Both depended upon the 
direct application of scientific principles. The 
point in the highlands, which should be met or 
made by a meridian from the monument, had 
not been ascertained. A survey could then be 
made, by which the limits of each country 
would be marked out. It is mentioned by the 
King of the Netherlands, that Great Britain 
had once refused a proposition of this kind. 
She did not refuse it now ; and nothing remain- 
ed to be done, but to carry the provisions into 
honest and faithful effect. The import of it is 
correctly exhibited in the following paragraph, 
from the Report of the Committee of Public 
Lands, in the Legislature of Massachusetts. 

* It results from the terms of these articles, 
and leaving out of vievv that part of the fifth relat- 
ing to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut 
river, and the boundary thence to the Iroquois, 
wliich is not material to the present purpose, that 
the duty which devolved upon the Commission- 
ers, a))p()inted under tlie fifth article, was to as- 
certain and define that point of tiic highlands 
lying due north of the source of the river St. 
Croix, which was designated, in the former treaty, 
as the north-west au'de of Nova Scotia, and to 
cause tiiat part of the boundary line, between 
the dominions of the two powers, which extends 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 50 

from the source of the river St. Croix, due north 
to the above mentioned north-west angle of No- 
va Scotia, thence along the said highlands, which 
divide those rivers which empty themselves into 
the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall 
into the Atlantic ocean, to the north-western- 
most head of Connecticut river, to be surveyed 
and marked according to the provisions of the 
treaty. No authority is given to the Commis- 
sioners, to ascertain and determine the respec- 
tive positions of the highlands, or of the source 
of the river St. Croix. Both these are supposed 
to be known. The position of the source of the 
river St. Croix, had in fact been determined by 
a special convention, and no question had ever 
been raised as to that of the highlands, which 
was laid down in all the maps, and described in 
a variety of official documents, emanating from 
the British Government, as stretching from the 
western extremity of the Bay des Chaleurs, along 
the south side of the river St. Lawrence, at a 
distance from it of twenty or thirty miles. The 
duty of the Commissioners was, therefore, as has 
been already said, to ascertain and determine 
the point where a line, drawn due north from 
the source of the St. Croix, strikes the highlands, 
and to cause the boandary line, which, accord- 
ing to the treaty, was to run westerly from that 
point along the highlands, to be surveyed. 
Should the Commissioners differ upon any of 
the matters referred to them, they were to make 
report to their respective Governments of the 
points on which they differed, and an arbiter 
was to be appointed, who was to decide on view 



60 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

of these reports, the points of difference therein 
stated.' 

The existence of these highlands forming the 
northern boundary of Maine, is assumed in the 
Report as a matter of fact, of pubhc notoriety, 
estabHshed by the uniform evidence of maps, 
and by the practice and authority of the British 
Government. A graphic description of the 
character of these highlands, from the best 
knowledge that exists of them at the present 
period, is given in the following passage from a 
letter of IMr. Preble, one of the agents of the 
United States, and late Minister at the Hague, 
to Mr. McLane, then Minister at London, pub- 
lished in an Appendix to the pamplilet, prefix- 
ed as. a title to this article. 

' On the southern border of the river St. Law- 
rence, and at the average distance from it of less 
than thirty miles, there is an elevated range or 
continuation of broken highland, extending from 
Cape Rosieres southwesterly, to the sources of 
Connecticut river, forming the southern border 
of the basin of the Lawrence and the ligne des 
versants of the rivers emptying into it. The 
same highlands form also the lis>ne des versants 
of tlie river Restigouche, and its northerly 
branches emptying into the Bay des Chaleurs, 
the river St. .John, with its nortlierly and west- 
erly brauchos emptying into the Bay of Fundy, 
the river Penobscot, with its northwesterly 
branches emptying into the Bay of Penobscot, 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 61 

the rivers Kennebec and Androscoggin, whose 
united waters, absorbed in the river Sagadaiiock, 
empty through it into Sagadahock Bay, and the 
river Connecticut emptying into the Bay, usually 
called Long Island Sound. These Bays are all 
open arms of the sea or Atlantic ocean, are de- 
signated by their names on MitchelFs map, and 
with the single excej)tion of Sagadahock, are all 
equally well known, and usually designated by 
their appropriate names. The river St. John, 
several branches of which take' their rise in 
these highlands, from thirty to one hundred and 
twenty English miles west of the line drawn due 
north from the source of the St. Croix, pursuing 
a south-easterly course, crosses said line, then 
suddenly turning, runs nearly parallel to it, when, 
resuming its former direction, it winds its way 
through more than three hundred miles from its 
source to the ocean ; and in its course, besides 
its own rapids and those of its tributaries, pre- 
cipitates itself over one fall of eighty feet in 
height. The vva-ters of the St. Lawrence are 
tide waters, and of course on a level with those 
at the mouth of the St John. As therefore the 
highlands, or point de portage, where the tribu- 
taries of the St, John take their rise, approach 
the St. Lawrence within thirty English miles, 
it necessarily^ results from the nature of things, 
that the country on tlie Atlantic side must con- 
tinue to rise till it reaches the dividing ridge or 
highlands, and then suddenly fall off toward the 
river St. Lawrence. But we are not here left to 
inference. It is proved by actual observation 
and computation, that the average absolute 
6 



63 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

height of this " ligne des versants" approximates 
nearly to two thousand feet.' 

The highlands where the line passes, at the 
Temiscouatu Portasie, is thirteen hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. That at which the 
noi'th-west angle of Nova Scotia is found, is 
a table of considerable elevation, and there the 
waters find a descent from the south into the 
river St. Lawrence, from tlie west into the Bay 
of Chaleurs, and from the north and north-west 
into the Atlantic. In this part of the country, 
where the pi-oper angle is found, are springs of 
the St. John, and Restigouche, and the j\Jetis. 
From similar highlands in Scotland, more like 
table-land than mountains, take their rise the 
sources of the Tweed, and the Clyde, and the 
Annan ; and a more natural or appropriate po- 
sition for the north-west an2;le of Nova Scotia, 
— divided by the Bay of Chaleurs from Can- 
ada, — could hardly be supposed. Thereabouts 
it was found and considered to be in 1798; 
and there was not even a question of I'act ex- 
isting since that period, but only a treaty .pro- 
cess instituted to ascertain the point. 

This elevation of the land at the source of 
the river IMetis, is e;reater than that of Mount 
St. Francis ; and viewed from tiie St. Law- 
rence, tlie ridge of highlands probably presents 
a conspicuous and continuous appearance. The 
term hauteur dc tcrre, is one used in Canada, 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 63 

and applied to this ridge, as the term highlands 
is used in Scotland. Tliis equivalent expression 
was first employed to mark off the Can^idian 
boundary, from New-England first, and finally 
from J\'ova Scotia, where the apphcation of it 
would have an equal felicity ; and it may be 
asserted as a fact, wiih entire confidence in its 
integrity, that no person in America ever doubt- 
ed that this boundary of highlands, distinguished 
and established by the treaty of 1783, ran north 
of the river St. John, — which is the only ques- 
tion, — till since the treaty of Ghent. We may 
safely challenge a contradiction. 

Nevertheless, it appears that the situation of 
these highlands was the principal point, upon 
which the British and American Commission- 
ers happened to differ. Upon this subject the 
Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature 
remark, ' that it certainly was not the intention 
of the parties to the treaty of Ghent, that any 
question should be made. When the British 
commissioners advanced the extravagant and 
preposterous pretension, that the highlands 
were situated in a widely different region in the 
State of Maine, the Committee say, the Amer- 
ican Commissioners might perhaps with propri- 
ety have declined to negotiate upon this point. 

* Instead of this, however, they undertook to 
refute the British argument, and finally consent- 
ed to refer it to the arbiter. The Kipg being 



64 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

authorized to decide upon all the questions spe- 
cified in the statement, was of course justified 
in consideriiiiT the situaiion of the hifrhlands as 
one of the points referred to hiai ; and had he 
giueii a dcchion in fiivoc of the British prdcn- 
sions^ the Government of the United States 
would have been hound to acquiesce in it, except 
so far as it might hoDe been considered vrigin- 
allij null and void, for ivant of any constitutional 
power in the Government of the United States, 
to authorize the submission to a foreign arbiter 
of the question so decided. 

' The King, however, gave no decision upon 
this or any other question relating to the north- 
eastern boundary. After stating the question to 
be, as above represented ; — what is the north- 
west antrle of Nova Scotia, and what arfrthe 
hig'.ilands which divide the waters that empty 
themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from 
those that fall into the Atlantic ocean ? — his 
Majesty proceeds to recapitulate at considerable 
length, the arguments which have been urged by 
the two parties, in Hivor of their respective pre- 
tensions, compares their forces, and finally con- 
cludes, that there is not sufficient evidence on 
cither side, to justify a decision.' 

It may be fitting to fiwuisb some further ac- 
count than we have yet seen, of the sini*;ular 
operations by which the mind of the arbiter 
has been guided to this strnngcly negative re- 
sidt. We might be spared the perplexity of 
following out a immber of passages, literally 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 6o 

leading to nothing, if it were not rather inter- 
esting and curious to see by what expedients it 
was practicable to avoid a decision. Besides 
being abundant and diversified in its details, the 
opinion is somewhat curious and complicated in 
its application of principles. It employs a 
scrupulous and subtle species of analysis. It 
cairies with it an aspect of novelty in its pre- 
vailing ideas, that miglit be rather refreshing on 
such an antiquated topic ; and it contains, there 
can be no sound reason for not saying it, a very 
singular mixture of mystifications and sophisti- 
cations. Altogether, it is one of the most re- 
markable pieces of metaphysics that have been 
produced, in matter of law or fact, in modern 
times. Although the method made use of may 
be understood by those who are acquainted 
with the subject and familiar with the case, it 
can hardly be mastered without considerable 
study, and also requires the aid of the artificial 
map A. DifKculiies present themselves in the 
official translations, which are not immediately 
removed by recurrence to the original; and on 
the whole it is a document of a rather unique, 
and anomalous description. But it will assume 
its place in the Annual Register of 1831, and 
find its way to the public understanding. 

The first step in the process, adopted by the 
arbiter, — and which, properly improved and 
pursued, it is easy to perceive, goes far to ac- 
complish the whole result, is to dispense with 
*6 



66 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

the quality of altitvde, as constituting a char- 
acteristic of the highlands, established by the 
treaty. It is assumed that ' the character more 
or less hilly and elevated of the country,' 
through which the line may be drawn, affords 
no criterion : 

Again, that the treaty of Ghent institutes a 
proceeding to ascertain the limit by direct ex- 
amination upon the spot, w^iich is incompatible 
with the idea of a definite or historical boun- 
dary : 

That the descriptive north-west angle of 
Nova Scotia, being itself the desideratum, has 
no proper existence : 

That the nature of the s^roiind east of the 
north-west angle of Nova Scotia, had not been 
indicated in the treaty, — nor the number of 
degrees to form that angle given : 

That, furthermore, there is nothing to be de- 
rived from the delim/itation of the ancient Brit- 
ish Provinces on this point, as the boundary 
line, west of the St. Lawrence, through the 
lakes, did not comport with the ancient Pi'ov- 
ince chartei's : 

And that, stripping the question of these in- 
coriclusive circiuTistances, namely, the nature 
more or less hilly of the ground, and the an- 
cient delimitation of the Provinces, &ic., it re- 
solves itself into this, — that is to say, what is ' 
the ground, no matter (n^iniporte) whether hilly 
and elevated, or not, whicii, westwardly from 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 67 

the line of the St. Croix, divides the rivers, 
which empty themselves into the St. Lawrence, 
from those which fall into the Atlantic ocean. 

Putting the lands, whether high or low, on 
both sides of the St. John, to the north and 
south, upon the same level, so long as waters 
flow from them in different directions, and di- 
vesting them of every circumstance, to distin- 
guish the one or the other by any prescriptive 
discrimination, the next step is to dispose of the 
rivers, that are found to flow from the reputed 
highlands. 

The rivers St. John and Restigouche, in the 
first place, are cashiered by the arbiter, on the 
ground, that it would not be safe to include 
them in the description of rivers, falling into the 
Adantic ocean ; — these rivers filling into the 
Bays of Fundy and Chaleurs ; — that these 
alone are the rivers falling into the Atlantic 
ocean at all, which the boundary line flaimed 
by the United States divides immediately from 
rivers, emptying themselves into the St. Law- 
rence ; — and that this boundary line does not 
even immediately divide the rivers that empty 
themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from 
the St. John and Restigouche, but only from 
rivers that empty themselves into the St. John 
and Restigouche ; so that, to reach the Atlantic 
ocean at last, each set of streams, separated 
from the St. Lrwrence, requires two interme- 
diate communications, viz. the one the river St. 



6S NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

John and the Bay of Fundy, the other the 
river Resligouche and Bay of Chaleurs. 

But there is a still more effective ingredient 
employed, in prder to produce a proper soluiion 
of this' problem ; and that seems to be, that the 
highlands which divide the rivers flowing into 
the St. Lawrence from those falling into the 
ocean, may as well divide them mediately as 
immediately ; so that, in this sense, it becomes 
entirely indifferent on which side of the St. 
John the supposed highlands are situated, and 
that one set w'ill answ er the purpose of the trea- 
ty just as well as the other. The river St. 
John is thus substantially extracted for all pur- 
poses from the field of inquiry. This river is 
put, in fact, upon the same footing with the 
highlands. It is considered immaterial, whether 
those highlands have any extraordinary eleva- 
tion. It is immaterial, whether the St. John 
flows Of\ one flank of them or the other ; and 
to avoid the existence of the north-west angle 
of Nova Scotia, both the elements in the treaty 
description, namely, the height of lands, and 
the circumstance of their dividing rivers, seem 
to be rendered nugatory. 

Striking the St. John from the scene, reduc- 
ing the highlands to a level, and expunging the 
southern boundary of Quebec, the north-west 
angle of Nova Scotia sinks into a shapeless ruin, 
— ^ Baron and BaiUie, and Saunders Saun- 
dersouy — a' dead and gane ." It leaves the 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 69 

description of the treaty of 1783, a mere rasa 
tabula. It converts the whole space of conntry, 
— from tlie Chandiere to the river, IMetis, em- 
bracing the Quelle, Kamouraska, Da Loup, 
Verte, Trois Pistoles and Ria.ousky, falling 
hito the St. Lawi-ence on one side, that is, be- 
tween those streams to the north, and the Pe- 
nobscot, Kennebec and Androscoggin, the 
whole breadth of Maine, to the South, for all 
purposes of the treaty, — into table land. The 
face of the country is, in fact, discharged from 
all features of a sensible character ; it is all in- 
definite. The original description is neutral- 
ized ; there is no firm or distinct tract of ground 
remaining ; the chemical process has been suc- 
cessful. The treaty description of the territory 
is cancelled, and becomes a mere blank. 

In thus exercising this sovereign faculty of 
going into a thoroughly new and artificial view 
of the subject, — as though there were no pre- 
existing rules or principles of determination in 
regard to it, — the arbiter carefully discards all 
that is historical. In this respect, therefore, the 
description in the proclamation of 1763, the 
Quebec Act of 1774, and the successive com- 
missions to the governors of Canada, — go for 
nothing. It is not that the negotiators of 1783 
adopted so much any ancient delimitation of the 
Provinces in that quarter, as that they employed 
a set of terms, which, by their being made use 
of to define the principal provincial boundary 



70 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

in that direction, had acquired a knoiun, deter- 
minate, and practic(d signifiration. If there 
had been ntj evidence on this subject before the 
arbiter, and he had been left entirely to the 
lijihts of his own mind, he might liave been jus- 
tified in viewing it more as an open question. 
But he was not thus at liberty. In the first 
commission that was issued to Sii- Guy Carleton 
as governor of Quebec, in 1786, the identical 
description of ' highlands, which divide the 
rivers that empty themselves into the river St. 
Lawrence from those which fall into the At- 
lantic ocean,'' was used, which was employed 
in the treaty of 1 783. It could not be said, 
that the treaty paid no regard to the ancient 
delimitation of the British Provinces, since 
Nova Scotia was expressly named, and the 
western boundary of that Province, terminating 
at its north-w-esternmost point in those high- 
lands, was adopted as the eastern boundary of 
the United States. 

With resj)ect to the inference of the arbiter, 
that the northern boundary of Maine is not to 
be regulated by the southern boniuhiry of Que- 
bec, on the ground that the limits of the colo- 
nies were not adopted as the limits of the United 
States, if it were of any importance, we should 
be glad if his INIajesty would inform us, what 
the limits of the colonies were at the declaration 
of their independence? Should we go by their 
charters to the Pacific, or be governed by the 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 71 

acts of 1763 and 1774, intended to bear mainly 
upon what are now the Middle and Southern 
States of the Union ? Does it follow, in his es- 
timation, that because the operation of those 
provisions was not acquiesced in according to 
all their extent, that therefore their expressions 
are to be without effect, when they are literally 
recited and exactly applied ? Because the lakes 
were made the boundary from the Iroquois to 
their farthest extremity in the wilderness, does 
it necessarily vitiate and destroy that portion of 
the description in these acts, which applies 
with perfect precision from the Connecticut 
and Chaudiere to the Bay of Chaleurs? The 
logic of the arbiter implies an acquaintance 
with historical circumstances, while all his 
deductions are made against the authority 
of historical documents. Every thing is made 
to tell one way in his philosophy. What 
he has been able to do in the actual manner in 
which he has gone to work, is not in itself so 
wonderful, — because he has absolutely been 
able to do nothing, — as the dexterity with 
which he has attempted to divest the subject of 
all its real merits, arising from the character of 
the country, the demarkation of Canada, and 
the whole class of facts, geographical and his- 
torical, combined, which come to us as tradi- 
tionary truths, and are established under the 
most authentic sanctitms. Supposing, if it 
were possible, the highlands to have been hy- 



72 NOJRTH-EASTERN BOUNDAKY. 

pothetical, still they had an unquestionably ad- 
mitted existence, the intention was capable of 
being perfectly ascertained, and the deJimiialion 
which was designed could have been conclu- 
sively demonstrated. The phrase ' Atlantic 
ocean' was genus generaVissimura. It embrac- 
ed all but the river St. Lawrence to the south 
and east. A verbal criticism was raised in the 
British statements, on the word ' seas^ having 
been used in the proclamation of 1763, as be- 
ing the more comprehensive term, but the ar- 
biter does not notice this slender distinction. 
If any of the original traces were obliteratedj 
or the monuments referred to not to be found, 
it does not follow that the direction of the treaty 
was to be disregarded and abandoned as en- 
tirely ineffectual, so as to substitute a totally 
arbitrary definition, or rather a merely arbitrary 
division. 

The arbiter, looking into historical docu- 
ments for a very limited purpose, finds that the 
norih-icest angle of JSfuva IScotin was at one 
lime (1755) on the bank of the St. l^awrence ; 
and at another (1779) at the source of the St. 
John. Now it is quite cert:iin, that there never 
was any such thing as the north-west angle of 
Nova Scotia in existence until J 703. When 
the northern boundary of that Province was 
considered as resting on the Si. Lawrence, the 
arrival of the north line from ihe St. Croix never 
gave it the deno>ninaiion of an angle. The 
north-west angle of Nova Scotia was never 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 73 

fomied, till the Province of Quebec was set 
off. To look on Mitcheli's iiinp for the latitude 
of that angle, as coinciding wiili the St. Law- 
rence, is not merely an anachronisnn, but an 
absurdity. Mitchell's map was laid before the 
arbiter, because it was known to have been 
before the British and American negotiators, 
in forming the treaty of 1783. But to infer 
from that map, that there was any assignable 
north-west angle of Nova Scotia upon the lati- 
tude of the river St. Lawrence, different from 
that designated by the treaty, is preposterous. 
The identical Mitchell's map, which was used 
at Paris in making the treaty, is still preserved, 
and exhibits traces with a pencil, since that pe- 
riod apparently passed over with a pen, showing 
where the angle in question was understood at 
that time to be found, and intended to be fixed. 
But as there was no question when that map 
was made use of under the treaty of 1794, 
except as to the St. Croix, it was not deemed 
of any importance to obtain attestation to the 
truth of these marks, and was deferred, until 
by the decease of Mr. Adams, and the infirm- 
ity of Mr. Jay, it became impossible. 

In the conferences of our negotiators at Paris 
in 1783, it appears from the testimony after- 
wards taken, that the easterly boundaries of the 
Province of Massachusetts, it was considered, 
ought to constitute those of the United States ! 
It seems that Mr. Jay supposed the St. John 
7 



74 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

to be the eastern limit, and that it was so con- 
sidered by respectable opinions in America. 
But it was replied, that the St. Croix was the 
river mentioned in the charter of IMassachusetts, 
and dierefore it was adopted. This was a 
mistake. The St. Croix was not mentioned 
in the charter. It is evident, that the Conti- 
nental Congress in 1779, considered the char- 
tered boundaries of Massachusetts Bay as ex- 
tending to the St. John. That river, the St. 
John, had, as a committee of Congress say in 
1782, before been called the St. Croix. The 
territory called Sagadahock had been consid- 
ered as extending to the St. John, as the limit 
of the place called ' St. Croix, next adjoining 
to JVew Scotland.^ While the dispute about 
Acadia was pending, Nova Scoiia was placed 
on tho east of the St. John, and that river was 
called also, as has been mentioned, the Clyde. 
The error of the old Congress, therefore, on 
this subject, was not entirely without occasion. 
The circumstance is adverted to, because 
ideas are still understood to exist to the same 
purpose, and because the King of the Nether- 
lands has availed himself of it to find a north- 
west angle of Nova Scoiia at the furthest source, 
he probably means, of the St. John. This is 
a perversion of the fact, if not of the o|)inion, 
upon any other prin(i|)le than that the St. John 
was properly regarded as the St. Cioix. But 
the opinion that prevailed in Congress is best 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 75 

explained by the report of the committee In 
1782, which refers to Bowen's map for author- 
ity or ilhisiration, and that map places the north- 
west angle of Nova Scotia on the highlands, at 
the source of tliat branch of the river St. John, 
which is called the Madawaska. Five difFer- 
eni maps, published in London, in 1765, 1771, 
1774, 1775, as is mentioned in the first pro- 
duction al the head of this article, place the 
angle on the highlands, at the head of the same 
branch. But this is now immaterial. Dr. 
Franklin and Mr. Jay assented to the opinion 
of Mr. Adams, that the St. Croix was the river 
in the charier; and the St. Croix on Mitcheirs 
map was selected. Mr. Adams and Mr. Jay 
agree that the boundary lines of the United 
States were marked out on that map — and who 
can doubt, where the line in dispute along the 
liighlands was drawn? 

The little differences elicited between the 
authorities of New Brunswick and Canada, 
alluded to by tlie arbiter, resulted in fixing the 
southern limit of Quebec at the place mention- 
ed on Mount Francis, near the lake Temiscou- 
ntu. This was before the treaty of 1794 ; after 
this, and the determination of 1798, we hear 
no more of them. 

Tlie claim of the American Congress to the 
river St. John inspired the arbiter with an idea 
of equitable compensation, which he was not 
|ble, however, to work out quite to our advan- 



76 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

tage, or his own contentment. The committee 
of Congress, it seems, considered the space be- 
tween the Pnssamaquoddy and St. John as 
' the place called or known by the name of St. 
Croix,* in the Dulce of York's Grant, — and so 
part of Sagadahock. By the surrender of 
ioth banks of the vSt. John for a considerable 
way from its mouth, and the intervening tract 
between the St. John and St. Croix bordering 
on the sea, the arbiter is of o[)inion that Great 
Britain did not obtain a territory of less value, 
than if she had accepted the St. John as her 
frontier, — granting to the United States, on that 
ground, the territory claimed by them to the 
north of the St. John. Still, he considers that 
the value of concession to Great Britain would 
be so much impaired by this compensation to 
the United States, that he cannot conceive what 
could have induced Great Britain to consent to 
it. He therefore comes to the conclusion, ihcit 
he cannot confirm this equation to the United 
States, without viol.uing the principles of law 
and equity ; on the other hand, he comes also 
to tl)e conclusion, that he cannot well refuse to 
establish it without pressing on the same prin- 
plcs, yet, — although it n.ust be confessed, not 
without obvious reliictnnce and regret, — he 
does come to the conclusion by the aid of other 
circumstances, that ' to him that hath shall he 
given, and from him that !i;ilh not shall be 
taken away even that which he hath.' Tlie 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 77 

ofF-set, thus allowed in his view by the treaty, is 
resumed by this result. His mind has been 
too much familiarized with the affairs of Eu- 
rope, however, for the last forty years, to dis- 
regard the idea of some indemnity. He had 
received one himself at the hands of Bona- 
parte. He had a large one from the Congress 
of Vienna, which he has now lost, and he is 
now disputing the arrangements about Lim- 
bourg and Luxemburgh, upon the same prin- 
ciple. It was natural for him to cast about for 
something of this kind, to relieve the wounded 
principles of right and equity, by providing 
somewhat in the shape of an equivalent in 
some other quarter; and, at the same time, fur- 
nish a speciiiien of his proposed method of 
adjudication. 

In preparing this, he was not without an in- 
timation of what was practicable and accepta- 
ble in the estimation of the British Govern- 
ment, from the negotiations at Ghent; in which 
it was said, that the demand of a cession of 
the portion of the District of Maine in question, 
left it ' open for the American plenipotentia- 
ries to demand an equivalent for such cession, 
either in frontier or otherwise.' The British 
statements and evidence indirectly afforded the 
arbiter information, that tlie United Slates had 
begun to build a fort at Rouse's Point on Lake 
Champlain, which, on a true survey of the 

forty-fifth parallel of latitude, would be exclud- 

*7 



/8 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

ed from their territory ; and insinuated, that 
this was all the interest the United States had 
in that survey. Neither the statements, docu- 
ments, or evidence exhibited on the part of the 
United States, contained the slightest notice of 
this circumstance ; and it was not touched in 
the convention. By adjudicating this place,. — 
to which we did not pretend to set up a shadow 
of title, unless it was found south of the true 
line, — to the United States, he proposed a 
mode of decision, which, if not objected to, 
would seive equally well in both cases. 

We will look at this matter a moment. Ad- 
mitting, that territory is the most proper meas- 
ure of compensation for territory, if the arbiter 
could go so far out of his way as to award us 
Rouse's Point, to save an outlay, which may 
be considered as lost to us at any rate, — if he 
could depart from so fixed a rule as a ])arallel 
of latitude, where there was no room for any 
perplexity about the courses of rivers, — if he 
could thus travel entirely out of the field of ter- 
ritory allotted to us by the treaty of 1783, — 
why could he not as well have applied the rem- 
edy to that quarter of the country, upon which 
he was obliged, in his own expression, to inflict 
the wound ? Why, if the negotiation and ex- 
change supposed by him to have been made in 
the treaty of 1783 were to be revised, so as to 
take back the tract to the north of the St. John, 
should there not have been a proportionctle reS' 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 79 

toraiion of that which Great Britain had obtain- 
ed, to the west of that river ? We put it simply 
upon the principles of right and equity, which 
the arbiter is afraid to wound by liis opinion. 
We do not say, that we did not receive a })er- 
fect equivalent for the portion which we parted 
will), upon l:is notion, at the j)eace of 1783 ; 
but iliat depends upon our being oble to hold 
it; and it is proved, thnt the St. Croix, which 
was marked out for us upon the rule which the 
arbiter adopts, namely, Mitchell's map, would 
have given us all the river St. John, from the 
mouth of Eel river, at the bend above Frede- 
ricton. Supposing that he could not have given 
us back to the Magaguadavie, he might have 
restored to us the territory to that part of the 
St. John, where it would have been touched by 
the meridian from Mitchell's St. Croix. Nay, 
he could not possibly have wandered farther 
out of his sphere, than he did in carving us out 
a portion of Canada, if he had assigned to us 
the islands of Grand Menan, and Campo Bello. 
The latter is properly a part of the promontory 
on which the town of Lubec is situated, and 
the other the largest of a group of islands im- 
mediately abreast. Not that we believe that 
any operations of this kind would have been 
within his competency ; they would not have 
been less so than what he has done ; and if the 
illustrious arbiter could exercise the utmost 
power, not of a judge, but of a Chancellor, in 



80 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

reforming the terms of the contract between the 
parlies upon its original principles, there would 
have been no injustice in giving us the benefit 
of the same retrospection. If it were out of 
his power to conceive what could have influ- 
enced the Court of London to concede the full 
value for an equivalent, which Great Britain is 
admitted to have received, is it right, upon 
principles of mere equity, that she should retain 
the consideration, and still be allowed to recov- 
er back the territory she has parted with for it? 

These considerations, however, we are sen- 
sible, have no relevancy in regard to the proper 
question of the authority of the arbiter; they 
only serve to shadow out the excessive irregu- 
larity of his proceeding. We may go farther, 
and acknowledge that there is no sort of foun- 
dation for this fancy of ihe arbiter, dignified into 
some consideration by being adopted by him, 
of there having been any balancing of equiva- 
lents on this quarter at the treaty of 1783, in 
the manner wliich it has been his pleasure to 
suppose. The proceeding was a simple and 
direct one on the pait oi the Ameiican negotia- 
tors, and there was no objection made to the 
extent of it on this quarter by the British. 
There is yet living and most j'espectable evi- 
dence on this point. 

We might decently apologize to our readers 
for drawing our remarks to such a length, but 
the subject assumes a practical importance, as 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 81 

it now awaits the action of the constituted au- 
thorities of the United Stntes, upon the opinion, 
which lias heen duly communicated to them, of 
the King of the NetheHands. The learned Dr. 
Rutlierfordi has employed some part of a chap- 
ter, which Dr. Paley thouglit might as well 
have been spared, to prove that acts, which did 
not import obligation, were not binding as laws. 
Great as may be the respect and deference due 
to the character of a crowned sovereign, who 
has undertaken to perform such an amicable 
office, and omitting to ask, whether he continu- 
ed to be precisely the same political person, or 
to sustain the same independent relation, at tlie 
time of pronouncing his opinion as that of ac- 
cepting the authority, it can be no discourtesy 
to ask, whether that authority has been executed. 
And again, while we are cautious of making a 
free use of phrases, signifying sovereignty, in 
application to the proper powers of any of the 
members of this Union separately, and should 
be very carefid not to intrude upon the sacred 
precincts of constituiional power, we are at the 
same time sensible, that there are rights of a 
most important chardcter, not merely reserved 
and secured to those meiribers by the great in- 
strument of our prosperity, but whicli are inhe- 
rent in the soil which is the basis of them, and 
cannot so much as be touched without their en- 
tire consent. 

We decline going into any further argument 



82 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

of our own upon this subject. The magnitude 
of the interest involved in the issue, in a pubHc 
and terrilorial point of view, is one that com- 
mands a just and serious consideration. The 
executive and legishuive authorities of Maine 
and Massachusetts, the two States most imme- 
diately interested, have united in the most dis- 
tinct expressions of ttieir opinions, disaffirming 
the validity of the formal act cotnmunicated by 
tlie King of the Netherlands ; and the language 
of the latter State, although less excited and 
anim.ated than that of the former, appears to us 
to be neither less clear, nor forcible and deter- 
mined. The Legislative Committee of Massa- 
chusetts go a good way in giving a large and 
liberal construction of the power of the arbiter, 
to determine the points of difference, as appears 
from the extract of the Report which we have 
already quoted. If the evidence before the ar- 
biter was insufficient, he was authorized to re- 
quire more and cause further inquiries, but of 
this Aiculty he declined to avail himself, not 
considering the qnestion to be capable of any 
fiu'ther elucidation. Upon this the Committee 
say ; 

* The arbiter, having thus declared that the 
case was not susceptible of a decision upon the 
evidence, with which he had bocui tarnished, and 
also that it was not suscoptihlo of any further 
elucidation by means of additional evidence, 
fioems to have had no alternative left, but to close 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARy. 



83 



the^proceedings, and resign his functions, with- 
out giving any opinion. Instead of this, howev- 
er, after alleging his inability to pronounce a 
decision in favor of the line claimed by either 
party, he attempts to settle the difference in an- 
other way, and recommends the adoption of an 
entirely new boundary, not previously contem- 
plated, or claimed on either side, and having no 
pretence of foundation or support in the terms of 
any of the treaties. 

' This recommendation,' says the report, 'ter- 
minates the King's proceedings in regard to the 
question of the north-eastern boundary. Ac- 
cording to the terms of the treaty of Ghent, as 
above quoted, the two parties engage to consider 
the decision of the arbiter as final and conclu- 
sive on all matters reiorred to him ; and it is 
stipulated, in the convention of I8'27, that the 
decision of the arbiter, when given, shall be tak- 
en as final and conclusive, and shall be carried, 
without reserve, into immediate effect, by Com- 
missioners appointed for that purpose by the 
contracting parties. But, as this recommenda- 
tion of an entirely new boundary is not a deci- 
sion of any of the points referred to the arbiter, 
and is declared by himself not to be so, it is of 
course not binding, as a decision under the stip- 
ulations of the treaties. It is hardly necessary 
to add, that, as the mere recommendation of a 
friendly Sovereign, given without authority upon 
a point not submitted to him, it can have no ob- 
ligatory character, however justly it may be en- 
titled to the most respectful consideration. As 
the Committee cannot supj)ose that this will be 



84 NORTH-EASTERN BOUxNJDARY. 

considered by any one as a doubtful principle, 
they deem it unnecessary to multiply arguments 
in support of it. They will merely rel'cr, in il- 
lustration of the abuses that would result from 
the adoption of a contrary principle, to the cele- 
brated case of Bruce and Baliol, rival pretenders 
to the crown of Scotland, who submitted the de- 
cision of their respective claims to Edward I., 
then Kincr of Eno:land, sometimes called the 
English Justinian. In this case, as in the one 
submitted to the King of the Netherlands by 
Great Britain and the United States, the argu- 
ments and evidence furnished by the parties 
were not cojisidered sufficient, to authorize a 
decision in favor of either ; and, in order that 
the difference miorht not remain unsettled, the 
English Justinian adjudijed the crown of Scot- 
land to himself. It will hardly be pretended, 
that this proceeding was conformable to the 
rules of national law ; but it would have been 
fully justified, by any principle which would give 
to the recommendation of a new boundary by 
the King of the Netherlands an obligatory power 
over the Governments of Great Britain and the 
United States. If an arbiter have a right to 
travel out of the record of the submission, and 
give opinions having the force of law, upon 
questions not referred to him, it is obvious, that 
there are no limits to !iis authority, and that the 
reference, by two Governments, of any question, 
however unimportant, to the arbitration of a 
third, amounts to a completJi and unconditional 
surrender of the national rights and independ- 
ence of both. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 85 

' The recommendation of the King of the 
Netherlands is therefore not binding upon either 
Government. It is nevertheless entitled to very 
respectful consideration. It is the suggestion of 
a friendly Sovereign, made with the best inten- 
tions, and under an impression, that the adop- 
tion of it would be mutually and equally advan- 
tageous to both the parties. Although it can 
have no obligatory character, it may be proper 
to inquire, whether it is right and expedient that 
the Government of the United States should vol- 
untarily accede to it, and give it effect. 

* Supposing the question of expediency to be 
entirely open, the Committee are unable to per- 
ceive any very strong reasons for deciding it in 
the affirmative. They are not aware, that any 
material inconvenience can result from a further 
delay in the survey of the north-eastern bounda- 
ry, as determined by the treaty of 1783; while 
the adoption of the recommendation of the King 
of the Netherlands would involve the sacrifice of 
a considerable tract of territory, and an acquies- 
cence, to a certain extent at least, in pretensions 
on the part of the British agents, which are too 
extravagant to be regarded for a moment as en- 
titled to serious attention. But the Committee 
will not enlarge upon the considerations belong- 
ing to the question of expediency, because they 
conceive that this question is precluded by the 
preliminary one of Constitutional right. The 
Government of the United States have no con- 
stitutional authority to cede to a foreign State 
any portion of the territory belonging to any one 
of the States composing the Union, without the 
8 



8G NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

consent of such State. They can, without a vi- 
olation of this rule, settle such questions relating 
to the boundaries of the Union as were left 
doubtful by the treaty of 17S3, because it is only 
by the settlement of these questions, that the ex- 
tent of the territory of the border States can be 
ascertained. But the situation of the highlands, 
which, according to the treaties, form the north- 
ern boundary in this quarter, is not represented, 
either in the treaty of 17S3, or in that of Ghent, 
as a doubtful point. The latter treaty provides 
for ascertaining the point where a certain line 
strikes the highlands, and for surveying another 
line, which is described as runnincr jn a westerly 
direction along the highlands. No provision is 
made for ascertaining the situation of the high- 
lands, which is spoken of as known. The Gov- 
ernment of the United States had therefore no 
Constitutional rijiht to allou' it to be dr;iwn in 
question by England, still less to submit it to ar- 
bitration ; and had the King of the Netherlands 
decided against us on this question, the Com- 
mittee believe, as they have already remarked, 
that the act would have been wholly null and 
void, from a defect of authority in the Govern- 
ment of the United States to make the yubmis- 
sion. The only uncertainty which exists in re- 
gard to this part of the boundary, results from 
the want of an accurate survey of a line, the 
general course of which is well defined. The 
Government of the United States had a right to 
cause this line to be surveyed, without regard to 
the effect which the survey miglit have upon the 
extent of the .sup})osed territory of Maine in that 



NORTH-EASTFRN BOUNDARY. 87 

quarter. Farther than this, it had no authority 
to go, without the consent of Massachusetts and 
Maine.' 

The pamphlets on ' the decision of the King 
of the Netherlands, considered in reference to 
the rights of the United States and State of 
Maine,' assumes it as a principle, not to be con- 
tested, 

* That, as the United States and Great Britain 
stood in relation to each other and to the King 
of the Netherlands, as independent nations, the 
King of the Netherlands had no power whatever 
over any question of diflference between the 
United States and Great Britain, beyond what 
those two Governments expressly and by mutual 
agreement delegated to him. It was not for 
him to extend his powers by remote inferences, 
of which he was to constitute himself the sole 
judge, nor to enlarge and aid his jurisdiction by 
indefinite and latitudinarian construction. It was 
not for him to assume the office and attributes of 
a friendly compoun.der, governed by no rule or 
principle but his own discretion, unless such an 
office and such powers were solemnly and ex- 
pressly conferred upon him by the high parties 
interested. There is in such cases, from the 
very nature of the transaction, no implied power. 
Every man feels within him, as the dictate of 
common sense, that a consciousness of the deli- 
cacy of the office, and a proper respect for the 
high parties interested, impose it as a rule, that 



88 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

the arbitrating Sovereign should never take upon 
himself to extend the limited special powers del- 
egated to him, beyond the most plain, obvious 
nTeaning of the solemn, express stipulations of 
the parties. It is not only indelicate, — it savors 
of assumption in such cases, to resort to infer- 
ence and construction in order to enlarge his 
authority. To maintain that the arbiter is the 
sole judge of the powers delegated to him and of 
the measure of his discretion, is to confer upon 
him the power to make treaties for the parties, 
as well as to execute them.' 

We have an impression on this subject, of 
which we cannot quite divest ourselves ; and 
that is, that the King of the Netherlands, wheth- 
er from respect to the difficulties thrown in the 
way of his decision, or from an opinion that a 
friendly suggestion from him might answer all 
the purpose of a decision, actually meant no 
more than to throw this proposition into a form, 
for the consideration of the two Governments, 
to be rendered efiectunl by their agreement to 
adopt it. This idea is strengthened, without 
adverting to his own circumstances at the time, 
by observing the appropriate Innguage of adju- 
dication, il doit etre consiJere, in detelmining the 
proper bend of Connecticut river, in comparison 
with the loose pl:r;ise il conriendra, applied to 
the other points of this opinion. This is per- 
haps to be ratber regarded as bis intention ; and 
the supposition is entirely respectful to him. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 89 

We have little inclination or room to pursue 
a further inquiry into the question of expedi- 
ency. Our views on this subject are open to 
Ehe influence of information and reflection. 
Resolutions are not in all cases a substitute for 
reasoning; but they sometimes serve to em- 
body its results with great good sense, and to 
sound purpose. A strong concurrence of opin- 
ion, upon a point of public importance, where 
the subject has been under consideration for a 
sufficient period, is entitled to much respect. 
By the award or appointment of the umjjire, he 
has assigned to Great Britain the precise terri- 
tory — or perhaps rather more, — which her plen- 
ipotentaries required, and ours refused to cede 
at Ghent. On the other hand, he has given to 
us a kUiometre of land or water upon a point of 
Lake Champlnin, which is of no importance to 
us. Since the successive disasters of General 
Burgoyne and Sir Gc-orge Prevost, we venture 
to predict, that there will never be a third at- 
tempt to girdle the United States in that direc- 
tion ; and we consider Rouse's Point to be of 
as little value in a military point of view, as old 
Crown Point. We have no occasion to be on 
our guard at that avenue, and if we had, that 
would be no protection. We have mentioned 
the f;ict, that the existence of this abandoned 
affair was no where alluded to in any manner on 
behalf of the United States, in laying their case, 
before the arbiter. The fact has been stated 
*8 



90 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

and not contradicied, that a British exploring 
party, in the autumn of 1330, reconnoitred the 
line of the St. Francis, which has been marked 
out by the arbiter for our new boundary, and 
found iiboaiable to its source. This'knovvledge 
may at least serve to exj^lain the readiness of 
the British Govei-nment to accept that limit, 
vviien it is assigned to them in 1831. The 
terms of the British demand for a cession of 
territory at Ghent, would have been satisfied by 
an extension of their boundary to the river 
Madawaska. This was the outside of the orig- 
inal Acadian settlement, and no provincial grant, 
either by Governor Thomas Carleton, or since 
his day, has been made west of the mouth of 
that river. This too was the source of the St. 
John, intended by the old Congress. This 
river, with the Temiscouatu lake and portage, 
had always afforded the ordinary line of com- 
munication to the St. Lawrence. It was made 
a military route during the last war with Great 
Britain. Its military advantage was demon- 
strated ; and the expediency of enlarging the 
British frontier to the left, that is to say, on tlie 
line of march toward Canada, was directly rec- 
ommended. The St. Lawrence being shut up 
a great part of the year, and the outlet from St. 
John's and Halifax to the Atlantic being always 
open, the importnnce of these places as depots 
has been established, and experience has deter- 
mined the utility of widening the communica- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 91 

tlonfrom this quarter to Quebec. This is a 
utility, however, which is foreign to us. For 
civil purposes and the proper intercourse of 
peace, the question of a cession of a portion of 
our territory might be one thing. The argu- 
ment respecting the transmission of the. British 
mail, has been made use of; but that mail, we 
apprehend, is as regularly delivered to Montreal 
from New York, as it is at Quebec from Hali- 
fax. In a time of peace, there can be no ob- 
struction. Would to heaven, there could nev- 
er be any danger of its interruption. Experi- 
ence, however, does not recommend to a peace- 
ful nation the policy of disarming itself; and a 
cession of this frontier augments the British 
power for all purposes, that enable her to make 
an impression upon us, in no measurable ratio. 
It may be desirable, upon the soundest princi- 
ples of philanthropy, to protect ourselves 
against a repetition of the stale charge of weak 
ambition to extend our own limits in that direc- 
tion, by avoiding to give to a power, already 
impregnable, an ascendancy and importance, 
which might operate as excitements to future 
enterprises on either part against the peace of 
this continent. 

We avow our belief, that the empire of the 
United States is not to be extended by any hos- 
tile encroachment upon the British Provinces. 
Great Britain is not designed to be ejected 
from this continent by our arms. Any change 



92 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

in the condition of her colonial dominions here 
is to come, as we apprehend, from her own 
consideration. Whether she shall turn her face 
to the wall, and see the sun set on her domin- 
ions upon this side of the Atlantic, depends upon 
her own wiil. It is to her own wisdom, that the 
prudence of pressing and persisting in this present 
demand, which has been wearisome to the pa- 
tience of all concerned, particularly addresses 
itself. It is, in part, for the benefit of the mon- 
itory reflections that may occur upon a review 
of the policy, exposed by the proclamation of 
1763, and the parliamentary act of 1774, re- 
vived in the negotiations at Giient, and expend- 
ing itself on this last point of dispute, — the re- 
quirement to which this question owes its origin, 
— that we have interwoven with the texture of 
these remarks, references to those projects 
which were cherished to cramp and fetter the 
proper limits of the United States, to an extent 
beyond what might otherwise appear to be in 
perfectly good taste, or belong to a precise view 
of the subject. We would record our fixed 
persuasion, that the present positions are best 
calculated to preserve the prosperity of the 
British dominions. Tlie associations connected 
with the occupation of Penobscot, and the en- 
terprise against New Orleans, ought not to be 
excited, except with a view to prevent a possi- 
bility of their returning. If any opportunity 
have been lost, the moral which American his- 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 93 

tory presents to Great Britain is not to try to 
recover it. A different sort of retrospection 
recommends itself to the statesmen and bene- 
factors of our mother country. We can wait 
the peaceful progress of our own principles. It 
is for us to maintain our ground, and leave the 
rest to time and our Constitution. 

If there be any question in the public mind, 
in regard to the real magnitude of the present 
interest to ourselves, although it may be com- 
prised in the possession of a territory of mode- 
rate compass, compared to the whole area of 
our country, it might be resolved by adverting 
to the eagerness with which Great Britain has 
hitherto persisted in the pursuit, and the impor- 
tance which her politicians have attached to the 
object. It may be an exaggerated feeling, to 
be sure, of this consequence, that inspires 
Colonel Bouchette,^ in his recent work on the 
British dominions in America, to state, that the 

* The opinion of Colonel Bouchette is plainly express- 
ed, that the arbiter has exceeded his authority. 'The 
award of the umpire,' says he, 'dictated no doubt by a 
sincere desire of doing impartial justice to the hio-h par- 
ties concerned,— is in fact a compromise ; and vveappre- 
hend, that the question of reference did not contemplate 
a decision upon that principle ; but was confined to the 
mere declaration of what was the boundary intended 
and meant by the treaty of 1783. It was in the spirit of 
that treaty alone, that the rule of decision was to be 
sought for, and not in abstract theories of equity,' &c. 
Deriving no validity from the authority of the arbiter, 
therefore, by common consent, the proceeding can ac- 



94 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 

acceptance of this portion of their claim 
awarded ibeni by the decision of the King of 
the Netherlands, will be tlie first step to the 
loss of their colonial empire. If Great Brit- 
ain can scarcely preserve tliat empire witb this 
concession, it would hardly be important to her 
to make a point of it. There are two opinions, 
however, prevailing upon this subject in Great 
Britain ; and her colonial policy is probably at 
this moment on a poise. The great importance 
of these colonies to the mother country is main- 
ly urged by those, who are there opposed to the 
progress of political reform. The Quarterly 
Review, Sir Howard Douglas, and that staunch 
and respectable supporter of the tory interest, 
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, declare the 
indispensableness of these appendages; and 
the political articles in these journals announce 
the loss of the colonies as one of the inevitable 
consequences of reform. Whether, in such an 
event, they shall constitute an independent Gov- 
ernment under the protection of Great Britain, 
or what ' variety of untried being' their condi- 
tion is to assume, has even begun to be a spec- 
ulation. But at present her colonial empire is 
considered as a unit ; her Canadas, her fishe- 
ries, her West-Indies are all considered parts of 

quire an operation and effect only by its becoming tlie 
act of the two Governments, by tlieir adoption and 
ajrrecinent ; and such, we have no trreat doubt, was tho 
intention of the Kinsr of the Netherlands. 



NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 95 

the same great whole ; and we can receive no 
equivalent for any valuable concession, except 
sucli an one, as shall give us forever the free 
trade of this Western hemisphere."^ 

* While this article was going through the Press, the 
Legislature of the irtate of Maine consented to treat 
with the Government of the United States, for a cession 
of its rights of soil and jurisdiction in the territory with- 
out the line recommended by the King of the ^Nether- 
lands, with an understanding that this line was to ha 
accepted. Only three or four weeks before, the same 
Legislature had adopted Resolves authorizing the ap- 
pointment of agents at Washington and Boston, to 
prevent, if possible, any such arrangement. The mo- 
tives that led to tliis sudden change of policy are not 
known. Tt was agreed to in a secret session of the Leg- 
islature, in consequence of letters from the agent at 
Washington, w^hich have not been published, ^and of 
which a communication was refused to the Government 
of Massachusetts, whose friendly co-operation in the 
whole business had been so recently solicited and ob- 
tained. The trarsaction wears very much the appear- 
ance of a mere political or rather party manosuvre, and 
that of a kind not particularly honorable to the persons 
engaged in it We shall probably return to the subject 
in a future number. 



APPENDIX. 



To the citizens of the State of Maine, 

And gentlemen who have ah'eady given me 
the most candid evidence and assurance of their 
patronage, to enable me to give an extensive cir- 
culation of the documents and information, con- 
tained in the preceding and annexed Map and 
75th No. of the North American Review, in 
reference to the North-eastern Boundary of 
the United States of America, I tender my 
most sincere acknowledgements and best efforts 
to merit their approbation. To the Public 
Characters in the State of Maine, and an adjoin- 
ing: State also, as well as the Land Commissioner 
and Librarian of the State of Massachusetts, 
who have so obligingly permitted free access, to 
the Public Documents, relative to this boundary 

question. 

9 



98 APPENDIX. 

(The documents referred to above may be 
found chiefly compiled in a large folio Book 
of nearly 1,000 pages, in the archieves of a 
state jointly interested, in this too long and 
tedious controversy, (apparently so easy to be 
understood,) as was originally intended by the 
high contracting Parties in settling the Treaty 
of Peace, 1783, which terminated the war for 
Independence, of die Patriots of that day, in 
addition to a large mass of Pamphlets, accu- 
mulated in relation to this subject, (containing 
it would seem,) incontrovertible facts and argu- 
ments, of the Commissioners and Senators 
assembled at Washington in 1832.) 

In compliance with my orii;inal intention, 
I could not better, I believe, serve the Public, 
than laying before them in a concise and 
clear manner, and in a cheap form, the 
Map of Maine, and disputed Territory contig- 
uous to the British Provinces of New Bruns- 
wick and Nova Scotia, accompanied with this 
little hook, which I have been politely permitted 
to copy frotn the 75th No. of the North 
American Review, in which I believe the 
question is so ably, candidly and justly exam- 
ined, as to bear testimony that the Author was 



APPENDIX. 99 

fully competent to the task, and that he well 
understood this " worse confounded" question, 
and has presented it to the public in a faithful 
manner. 

And in further evidence of my assiduity and 
desire to gratify and satisfy all who can and 
may read if they please, I subjoin an extract 
copied from an Official Document, viz. the 
Netherlands King's designation, or interpretation 
and recommendation for settling this question. 

" Qu'il convenir a adopter pour limire des 
deux Etats, une ligne tire droit au nord, depuis 
la source de la riviere St. Croix, jusqu' au 
point ou elle coupe le Milieu du Thalweg de la 
riviere St. Johns, du Milieu du Thalweg de 
cette riviere, le St. Francois se dechar2;e dans 
la riviere St. Johns, de la le Milieu du Thalweg 
de la riviere St. Francois, en la se sortent, jus- 
qu' a la source de sa branche la plus sud ouest, 
laquelle source nous indiquons sur la carte A. sur 
la lettre X. authentiquie par la signature de 
notre ministre des affaires etrangeres." 

I confess as an apology, from my ignorance 
of languages and literature generally, that 
this may not be either good French or Dutch, 
but have endeavored to present a fair copy of 



100 APPENDIX. 

one item, ' as I understand it,' viz. the 
King says, " my judgment is, you Jackson fel- 
lows or strangers, if you choose, may bite off 
your own nose," — if the Clay men will let you 
do it. 

That these Documents now presented to the 
Public may have a tendency to extend the light 
of truth, and aid in the cause of Patriotism, to 
establish the just rights of the State of Maine, 
and its citizens in finding a permanent Jand^ 
mark as originally intended by ' Our Patriot 
Fathers,' for their descendants. (Jf. E. angle 
U. S.)^ Is the true, and paramount object in 
view of the public's devoted and persevering 
servant, 

Peter Thacher Vose, 

Geographer and Map Projector. 



Now at Blue Hill Observatorij, near Ne- ' 
povset, Oct. II), 1832, (or Amiiversanj ' 
of Battle of Cornwallis, 1 78 1 . ^ 



* Persons who are conversant witli maps will discovor 
this (inirh to \n'. laid down in all tlio British maps, North 
latitude, 48 dejrrecs, some minutes North. Sec Mr. 
Spraguc'g speocii in the Senate U. S. 



GENERAL WINGATE'S CERTIFICATE. 



A new map of N. America with the West 
India Islands divided according to the Prelimi- 
nary articles of Peace, signed at Versailles, 
20th of January 1783, wherein are particularly 
distinguished. The United States, and the 
several provinces, governments, he. which 
compose the British Dominions, laid down ac- 
cording to the latest surveys, and corrected 
from the ori,2;inal materials of Gov. Pownall, 
Member of Parliament, 1783. 

Taken from the original Map in my posses- 
sion. Extreme point of U. S. by the above 
Map comes up to the 48th degree of N. Lat. 

J. F. WiNGATE. 

This Map was published in London, called, A General 
Atlas, describing the whole Universe, &c. by Thomas 
Kitchin and others. Published for Robert Sawyer, 
Fleet Street, No. 53. It may be seen at Gen. Wingate's, 
Bath, Me. It was intended exclusively for the British 
Government ships, and was purchased by Commodore 
Tingey, then a midshipman in the British navy, for ten 
guineas. 



Citizens of Maine ! 

The alternative is now distinctly presented to 
you. If you wish to see a part of your terri- 
tory, with its inhabitants, (see British claims as 
per Map annexed,) bargained, sold, and con- 
veyed away to a foreign power for the benefit of 
a few office-holders, you will go to the PoUs^ 
and vote for the Jackson ticket ! 

If you wish to preserve your territory entire, 
and at the same time to recover the West-In- 
dia trade, to secure a sound currency, a safe 
and proper mode of exchange, to sustain the 
Judiciary, to uphold the public faith, to preserve 
the Federal Constitution, tire union of the 
States, and the Freedom, Prosperity and hap- 
piness of the People, you will go to the Polls 
and give your votes to the illustrious statesman 
and patriot, Henry Clay. 



3U77-5 



I 



